VANCOUVER—British Columbia’s provincial health officer is “cautiously optimistic” that the measures in place to keep space between people are working to stem the spread of COVID-19 — but says undetected outbreaks could still change everything, and that B.C. still needs to prepare for a “worst-case scenario.”

Dr. Bonnie Henry, the provincial health officer who has led the province’s fight against the coronavirus epidemic, released numbers Friday that show what that worst-case scenario could look like in B.C.

Comparing the spread of the virus in B.C. to the epidemics in Hubei, northern Italy and South Korea, Henry said her province’s experience currently looks more similar to that of South Korea — where the virus spread early in the global pandemic and was well contained — than the other two, where the virus took a larger toll on the health-care system.

She credited social distancing measures implemented in the province on March 14.

If B.C. were continuing along the same trajectory it had prior to March 14, Henry said, we would expect to see 215 cases of COVID-19 per million people in the population, while the province’s current number is closer to 130.

Still, the province is preparing the health-care system for a Hubei-like or even northern Italy-like epidemic, “out of an abundance of caution.”

That includes freeing up hospital beds across the province by pausing scheduled surgeries, and planning for off-site beds to be made available for “less acute” medical and surgical patients, in the event that even more beds need to be freed up for COVID-19 patients.

Henry said that if B.C. went through a Hubei-like epidemic, it would expect to have enough ventilators to care for COVID-19 patients and other patients needing ventilators. Even in the more serious northern-Italy like scenario, the province expects to have enough ventilators, but may need to transport patients in order to access ventilators.

The modelling assumes that, as the coronavirus progresses, 13.8 per cent of coronavirus cases would require hospitalization, and 4.7 per cent would need critical care.

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