Beautiful Virgin Islands

Monday, Aug 04, 2025

British Columbia is testing for Covid-19 faster per head than South Korea, even at its peak

3,500 Covid-19 tests are being conducted in the Canadian province daily, the health minister says, a rate that easily exceeds South Korea’s rate per capita. The tests are being conducted at triple the rate of the rest of Canada

South Korea has been hailed around the world for its vast amount of Covid-19 testing, conducting 20,000 tests per day at the recent height of efforts to fight the disease.

But Canada’s westernmost province of British Columbia is now exceeding that peak daily rate on a per capita basis by a wide margin of about 75 per cent.

On the same measure, BC is testing at more than triple the rate of the rest of Canada – and more than five times the daily rate in the US over the past week, even as Canada’s southern neighbour embarks on a huge escalation of testing efforts.

British Columbia’s health minister, Adrian Dix, announced on Tuesday that the province was conducting 3,500 tests per day.

That equates to 690 tests per million people, daily. By comparison, South Korea’s peak daily testing rate amounted to about 392 tests per million. BC has a population of 5.1 million, while South Korea has 51 million people.

“Thirty-five hundred tests is what we’re doing every day, which is an extraordinary increase,” Dix said, hailing the work of the BC Centre for Disease Control. It is only two weeks ago that BC’s testing capacity was about 800 per day.

LifeLabs and other private facilities were part of the effort to ramp up testing, Dix said.

British Columbia is currently the most-infected province in Canada, with 617 confirmed cases, although it is likely to be soon surpassed by Quebec, which has a large number of presumed cases. BC accounts for 13 of Canada’s 27 known Covid-19 deaths.

All British Columbians have been told to stay at home to prevent the spread of the disease and to maintain at least 2 metres of distance from others when outside their homes.

Authorities in BC have come under criticism for supposedly inadequate testing, the fact that not all travellers are tested for the disease, and that even suspected cases are not always tested.

But provincial medical officer Dr Bonnie Henry said that failing to test travellers who exhibited symptoms of Covid-19 was not an oversight, but part of a deliberate strategy.

“To be clear: we are absolutely testing and contact tracing anybody for whom we don’t know the source of their infection,” she said. “We know the source of infection for people who are coming in from outside Canada.”

Since an order was already in place that all people arriving in BC from overseas must self-isolate for 14 days, there was no need to test those people if they showed symptoms, said Henry, since it was assumed they had the disease anyway.

“We don’t need them to go out of their house to go some place to be tested, maybe exposing other people. We assume that they have this disease, we manage them accordingly, and we make sure they don’t have contacts that pass it on to others.

“That’s how we break those chains of transmission, which allows us to focus on the community cases of transmission for which we do not know the source of infection.”

Henry said on Tuesday that BC had conducted about 30,000 tests; a day earlier, BC had reported 26,861 tests, and a three days before that 17,912, putting the province on track for Dix’s estimate.

By comparison Canada is doing 10,000 tests daily, according to chief medical health officer Theresa Tam. Excluding BC, that amounts to about 200 daily tests per million.

Meanwhile, the United States has also been dramatically escalating testing. According to the Covid Tracking Project, which compiles state-based American data, the US has conducted 304,204 tests over the past week – an average daily rate of 133 per million people.

Although massive testing was crucial in arresting the outbreak in South Korea, its circumstances are specific – of the 357,000 tests conducted there as of Tuesday, about 60 per cent were for members of a religious sect at the centre of an outbreak that constituted the bulk of all infections in the country. Testing at the peak rate of 20,000 per day was being conducted largely off a list of 212,000 church members.

But mass testing on those worshippers has now been completed, and for the past week, South Korea has averaged 8,892 tests a day, or 174 daily tests per million people.

Cumulatively, BC’s approximately 30,000 tests amount to about 5,900 tests per million people; all of Canada’s 125,062 tests amount to 3,326 per million; and the US’ 367,710 tests amount to 1,124 per million.

Testing varies widely in the US, with New York state, which has the most cases, having conducted an average of 12,000 tests a day over the past week at a rate of 612 per million, daily. Governor Andrew Cuomo said on Tuesday that the state was conducting 16,000 tests a day.

South Korea’s 357,000 tests, meanwhile, represent about 7,125 tests per million people.

The World Health Organisation has urged nations to “test, test, test” all suspected cases of Covid-19.

But Henry said BC’s approach represented the best way to target the disease, with health workers, for instance, being “aggressively” tested.

“When we talk about ‘test, test, test’ the focus is on making sure we know where new cases are coming up where we don’t have a known source,” she said.

Newsletter

Related Articles

Beautiful Virgin Islands
0:00
0:00
Close
OpenAI’s Bold Bet: Teaching AI to Think, Not Just Chat
Tesla Seeks Shareholder Approval for $29 Billion Compensation Package for Elon Musk
Nvidia is cutting prices on its RTX 50-series graphics cards after sales slowed and inventories piled up
Ghislaine Maxwell Transferred to Minimum-Security Prison Amid Ongoing DOJ Discussions
U.S. Tariffs Surge to Highest Levels in Nearly a Century Under Second Trump Term
Matt Taibbi Slams Media for Role in Russiagate Narrative
Pilots Call for Mental Health Support Without Stigma
All Five Trapped Miners Found Dead After El Teniente Mine Collapse
Ong Beng Seng Pleads Guilty in Corruption Case Linked to Former Singapore Transport Minister
BP’s Largest Oil and Gas Find in 25 Years Uncovered Offshore Brazil
Italy Fines Shein One Million Euros for Misleading Sustainability Claims
JPMorgan and Coinbase Unveil Partnership to Let Chase Cardholders Buy Crypto Directly
Declassified Annex Links Soros‑Affiliated Officials and Clinton Campaign to ‘Russiagate’ Narrative
UK's Online Safety Law: A Front for Censorship
Nationwide Protests Erupt in Brazil Demanding Presidential Resignation
Parents Abandon Child at Barcelona Airport Over Passport Issue
Mystery Surrounds Death of Brazilian Woman with iPhones Glued to Her Body
Bus Driver Discovers Toddler Hidden in Suitcase in New Zealand
Switzerland Celebrates 734 Years of Independence Amid Global Changes
U.S. Opens Official Investigation into Former Trump Prosecutor Jack Smith
Leaked audio of Canada's new PM Mark Carney admitting the truth about the Net Zero agenda: "We're gonna make a lot of money off of this."
China Enforces Comprehensive Ban on Cryptocurrency Activities
Absolutely 100% Realistic EVO Series Doll by EXDOLL (Chinese Company) used mainly for carnal purposes
World Economic Forum founder Klaus Schwab: "In this new world, we must accept... total transparency. You have to get used to it. You have to behave accordingly. But if you have nothing to hide, you shouldn't be afraid."
Meet Mufti Hamid Patel, head of Office for Standards in Education in Pakistan
George Soros tells the World Economic Forum: "President Trump is a con man and the ultimate narcissist, who wants the world to revolve around him."
Hamas are STARVING the hostages.
Decline in Tourism in Majorca Amidst Ongoing Anti-Tourism Protests
British Tourist Dies Following Hair Transplant in Turkey, Police Investigate
Poland Begins Excavation at Dziemiany After New Clue to World War II‑Era Nazi Treasure
WhatsApp Users Targeted in New Scam Involving Account Takeovers
Trump Threatens Canada with Tariffs Over Palestinian State Recognition
Trump Deploys Nuclear Submarines After Threats from Former Russian President Medvedev
Trump Sues Murdoch in “Heavyweight Bout”: Lawsuit Over Alleged Epstein Letter Sets Stage for Courtroom Showdown
Germany Enters Fiscal Crisis as Cabinet Approves €174 Billion in New Debt
Trump Administration Finalizes Broad Tariff Increases on Global Trade Partners
J.K. Rowling Limits Public Engagements Citing Safety Fears
JD.com Launches €2.2 Billion Bid for German Electronics Retailer Ceconomy
Azerbaijan Proceeds with Plan to Legalise Casinos on Artificial Islands
Former Judge Charged After Drunk Driving Crash Kills Comedian in Brazil
Jeff Bezos hasn’t paid a dollar in taxes for decades. He makes billions and pays $0 in taxes, LEGALLY
China Increases Use of Exit Bans Amid Rising U.S. Tensions
IMF Upgrades Global Growth Forecast as Weaker Dollar Supports Outlook
Procter & Gamble to Raise U.S. Prices to Offset One‑Billion‑Dollar Tariff Cost
House Republicans Move to Defund OECD Over Global Tax Dispute
Botswana Seeks Controlling Stake in De Beers as Anglo American Prepares Exit
Trump Administration Proposes Repeal of Obama‑Era Endangerment Finding, Dismantling Regulatory Basis for CO₂ Emissions Limits
France Opens Criminal Investigation into X Over Algorithm Manipulation Allegations
A family has been arrested in the UK for displaying the British flag
Mel Gibson refuses to work with Robert De Niro, saying, "Keep that woke clown away from me."
×