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“We are working through a backlog of samples that needed to be tested, along with clusters of outbreaks at care homes that skew results beyond what can easily be extrapolated beyond those isolated circumstances,” said Henry.

In a letter sent to Henry Friday evening, and shared widely, Dr. Gerald Da Roza, head of medicine at Royal Columbian Hospital in New Westminster, said B.C. is on the same trajectory as Italy. He says B.C.’s doubling rate is three to four days for infected patients, which is similar to Italy.

If accurate, and that rate continued uninterrupted, within three to four weeks, B.C. could have more than 54,000 cases of COVID-19, according to a calculation by Postmedia.

Italy’s mortality rate, based on known data, is higher than B.C.’s.

Photo by NICK PROCAYLO / PNG

On Sunday, asked if he had had any response from the province, Da Roza said no one had pushed back and said his statements “lacked veracity.”

He noted, however, that his specialty is not epidemiology, and that he pulled his information from what was available publicly on the rate of spread by country.

Da Roza said he’s had overwhelming support from doctors around the province since the release of the letter.

On Sunday, Doctors of B.C. president Kathleen Ross sent a letter to its 14,000 members encouraging them to get the message out to self-isolate and practice social distancing by communicating directly with their patients and taking to social media.

Another physician, Abbotsford anesthesiologist Dr. Curt Smecher, independently had run his own analysis, plugging British Columbian and Italian case numbers into a spread sheet and graphing them. He said on Sunday that B.C. is two weeks behind Italy if there are no changes in rate of spread.