- Northern Capital News
- Posts
- We're finally measuring COVID-19 levels in Prince George
We're finally measuring COVID-19 levels in Prince George
Plus, Popeye's Chicken rumours
Earlier this year, the B.C. Centre for Disease Control (BCCDC) retired its COVID-19 dashboard. For much of the pandemic, this was the most accurate measure available to understand how COVID-19 was spreading in different parts of the province and what, if any, localized measures should be taken as a result. But as the disease and the controls around it evolved, so did the ways the BCCDC monitored it — you may have noticed that getting a COVID test is no longer as easy as it once was, nor is there much interest in positives being reported. Instead, many experts say the best way to track COVID-19 — and other diseases — at a population is through wastewater testing:
Even if people who are infected with the coronavirus never seek testing or treatment, they shed the virus in their stool. That has made wastewater surveillance a useful way to keep track of how much virus is circulating in a community. At the height of the pandemic, wastewater data provided an early warning of coming surges and helped experts monitor the spread of new variants.
Now that the emergency phase of the pandemic has ended, wastewater surveillance is an even more crucial tool, experts say. This spring, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention stopped calculating community Covid levels and collecting some other types of tracking data.
Although hospitalization rates have fallen, the virus still poses dangers, especially to people with compromised immune systems. Local wastewater data can help people and institutions, such as long-term care facilities, make more informed decisions about when to take more precautions, the researchers said.
All well and good except, as is often the case, none of this was happening in northern B.C. (or anywhere beyond the southern Interior) so information about what was happening “in the province” was actually information about what was happening in the lower half of the province.
So far, [Natalie] Prystajecky [head of the Environmental Microbiology Program at the BCCDC Public Health Laboratory] said, data from Prince George shows increasing levels of COVID-19, as is the case elsewhere in the province, but doesn't indicate significant levels of Influenza A or B yet.
Prystajecky says it wasn't able to monitor wastewater in the North until recently because the region lacked the specialized equipment and staff to collect samples, which are then sent to Vancouver for testing.
The BCCDC hopes to expand the program to another one or two communities in the north, she says.
Given the vast geography of the region, hopefully that happens soon.
This article in the Citizen is interesting to me because it echoes a line from Darrin Rigo’s newsletter earlier this week about the downtown being at a tipping point:
We’ve felt the catastrophic loss of The Makerie, there’s certainly a lot more “For Lease” signs than I’d like to see, and just anecdotally, I know other business owners are looking around at each other to see who is looking at the door to run. If the right sequence of events happens, there will be a cascade effect and it will be really painful for downtown.
Having someone who was downtown talk about how their business has boomed ever since relocating certainly isn’t going to help that. I’ve said in these pages before I actually feel like there are two separate downtown stories happening right now: One, centred toward Crossroads and Black Clover and extending maybe as far as 4th Ave. is of a downtown that’s more vibrant than it has been in decades, with people taking up parking spots throughout the day, into evenings and on weekends. The other, which extends to much of the rest of it, is in worse shape than it’s been in about the same amount of time. That’s obviously simplistic and there’s pockets of good and bad on both sides of that 4th/Queensway line but I do tend to agree with the tipping point thing — in both directions. One or two more strong anchor businesses and you could really turn things around, especially if it extended that line and/or brought in more traffic on evenings/weekends. On the other hand, if any of the big attractants down there were to decide to follow this gym’s lead, that could be a pretty big blow, as well.
One positive I should note is that the owners of Parkwood seeem to be reinvesting in their portion of the equation with new facades, new paint and a new anchor tenant set to go into the Save-On location early next year — so that’s something else for the plus column.
Quick news:
“The Prince George Public Library has completed a project updating terminology used in its catalogue records describing books written on topics related to Indigenous people… For example, they’ve changed ‘Indians of North America’ to ‘Indigenous People — North America.’”
A new online survey lets you give feedback on the future of the Pidherny trails - particularly the lack of parking which has put users into conflict with some neighbours.
‘Wildfires still a threat, and could last into the winter’: BC Wildfire Service says. Fun!
The coyote that was attacking unhoused people living downtown has been killed after it was caught attacking someone trying to sleep. Don’t feed coyotes!
Province investing in project to train more community support workers in the north.
RCMP looking into suspicious occurrence at College Heights Secondary.
Prince George Astronomical Observatory hosts an eclipse viewing this Saturday.
Exploration Place adds limited-time exhibit on climate change.
Popeye’s Chicken coming to the bottom of University Way? (unconfirmed)
PS. The river is super low at Cottonwood if you want to do some ambling:
Northern Capital News is a free, daily newsletter about life in Prince George. Please consider subscribing or, if you have, sharing with someone else.
Send feedback by replying to this email. Find me online at akurjata.ca.