Opinion: B.C. health officials finally treated us like grownups with COVID data

Photo: Contributed

A shocking thing happened earlier this week.

B.C. health officials like Dr. Bonnie Henry finally treated us like grownups when it comes to COVID-19 data.

Don’t get me wrong, Henry is doing a fine job of helping B.C. get through this pandemic, but the restriction on more specific COVID data has been a bit ridiculous.

And then, suddenly, we got a whole bunch of new data provided by the British Columbia Centre for Disease Control, which breaks down the province into local health areas.

Until then, data on caseloads were only available by health service delivery area, meaning that in the past, an amalgamated total lumped cities together.

Henry said Thursday the province is now releasing the more detailed data because caseloads have reached levels that allow health officials to point to more specific jurisdictions while maintaining an acceptable level of privacy.

Which, again, I think is ridiculous that it’s taken this long to find out how many cases have been seen in each city. The privacy excuse just doesn’t wash.

Take Richmond, for example, their residents have received city-specific numbers during the past five months, first from their health officer and also through the BCCDC due to the way the different regions are structured.

So they’ve gotten their numbers and it hasn’t been bedlam, nor has it been a privacy nightmare.

People deserve better data, including more specifics on who is getting COVID-19.