B.C. COVID-19 numbers appear lower without more testing: ER doctor

NEW WESTMINSTER (NEWS 1130) — There are undoubtedly more people with COVID-19 in this province than who have tested positive for it, and that discrepancy has led one front-line healthcare worker to voice his concerns publicly.

The COVID-19 numbers in B.C. aren’t as severe as those seen in other parts of the world, and an ER doctor in the Lower Mainland says what that really reflects is a lack of testing.

“We are very much under-testing the population,” argues Dr. Sean Wormsbecker, who works in the ER at Royal Columbian Hospital in New Westminster.

In a YouTube video posted over the weekend, he says, given current resources, some of the people he sees who likely have COVID-19 are simply told to self-isolate at home without being tested first.

“That scares me because, I mean, 10 years of clinical practice have taught me that, unfortunately, patients aren’t consistent in following direction,” Wormsbecker adds.

“Often what’s heard, no matter how we say it, is that if we’re not testing you, we’re not really taking you seriously, and that’s not the case. But it means that we’re going to be really, you know, low-balling the actual numbers,” Wormsbecker explains.

And the risk is that the public might see a containment success story when the province is actually being hit much harder.

“We can’t use those countries like Singapore or Korea as a benchmark for what we can expect to come. If anything, I think we have to, unfortunately, look more to the countries that haven’t done as well because we simply aren’t at that standard of quarantine, we’re not at that standard of social isolation, we’re definitely not at that standard of testing,” Wormsbecker says. “In the meantime, we just have to try to do our best with the people we see.”

However, the provincial health officer said she disagrees with Wormsbecker’s claims people are not following directions for things like self-isolating based on her experience and conversations with frontline workers.

“Most people are absolutely doing what we need them to do,” Dr. Bonnie Henry explained during a press conference Monday.

She noted the testing strategy has changed to find those most likely to have the disease and those most likely to need healthcare or hospital care.

Henry previously said asymptomatic people are not being tested unless they have been in close contact with an infected person or to find a source of the virus.

“But at this point in our epidemic, the important thing is identifying those chains of transmission and where people are getting sick. And that’s why the focus is on the healthcare system, on healthcare workers, but also community transmission. So there is some testing of people if there are clusters being identified in communities and this is happening around the province,” she explained.

“A broad testing of well people in our community right now is not what we are going to be doing. That is a strategy that we will be looking at if and when we come to a downside of our curve when we are looking again for an introduction coming into B.C. from other places.”

Testing in B.C. is currently being limited to the very ill, as well as healthcare workers, and to track clusters of infection.

More than 900 cases of the virus have been reported in the province, including 19 deaths.