 Good afternoon, my name is Adrienne Dix, I'm BC's Minister of Health, my right is Dr Bonnie Henry, BC's Provincial Health Officer. This is our COVID-19 briefing for Tuesday, January 4th. It's our honor to be here on the territories of the Musqueam, the Sqwamish, of the Slewa Tooth First Nations. Honored to be here today on their lands and with that, it's my honor to introduce Dr Bonnie Henry. Thank you very much and good afternoon. Today is our latest update on our province's COVID-19 pandemic response. This is our first briefing of the new year. Let's hope it will be the last time that we start off a new year focused on COVID-19. As you know, the virus has changed and is spreading rapidly. The Omicron strain that has now taken over the last couple of months here in British Columbia means that we are in a different race, in a different storm now. The Omicron variant of concern has taken over the Delta variant and is now the cause of over 80% of the new cases that we're seeing across British Columbia. It varies slightly in the north where it's not quite that high yet, but the data that's posted on the site is very clear that this has been a variant that has been dramatically different and is spreading in a different way and those pieces of the puzzle that I talked about a number of weeks ago are starting to come together. It also means that we need to respond slightly differently to this new strain that we're seeing. While we are seeing the rates of hospitalizations and those cases, it's no longer the case that we have three or four degrees of separation, that you know somebody who knows somebody may be that might have contracted the virus. The rate of transmission that we're seeing now in British Columbia, like many other jurisdictions around the world, means that at this point, most people in BC likely have a friend or a family member or a friend or a family member. Right now, in the tug of war of transmission, Omicron has the advantage and we see that in rapidly increasing case numbers we're seeing here and that we're seeing around the world. For now, in British Columbia, we have taken measures to try and slow that down and we are coping, but everything we do now makes a difference. Everything we've done up until now is the same. So many people in BC are vaccinated, are getting our booster shots and using those many layers of protection from keeping distances, wearing masks, staying home if we're feeling unwell, this is the right thing to do and this is what will get us through this phase as well. It means a lot of people will get sick and we are seeing that now. But your vaccine will protect most people from COVID-19 and we need to make sure we continue to do those other measures as well. We still have further challenges ahead and they're going to be slightly different challenges now. We know that some of the things that we did all along that made a difference with the strains we've been dealing with are no longer that useful right now. In particular, because we have that condition, the transmission is happening much more rapidly and we have a disease that is much more undifferentiated. It means a lot of people have milder upper respiratory symptoms that could be very similar, at least early on, to cold or to influenza. That means that things like case and contact tracing are no longer reactionary measures that are able to work to help us contain this. We have to be proactive in how we prevent ourselves from getting sick, but also how we prevent transmission to others. And our challenge across the board in the next few weeks will be dealing with high numbers of people who are off ill. And that may mean off work or out of school. It means out of healthcare workers and educators who aren't able to go to work because they're ill. And for most of us, they are ill because of our vaccinations. That will be a mild illness, but the interruption to our business continuity is something we need to think more carefully about. And today I want to speak to businesses in British Columbia. Given this rate of transmission, the short incubation period and the high number of people who are getting ill, we need now all businesses to put contingency restrictions on those who are off ill. At this point, given the number of people getting sick every day, we need to reactivate those COVID-19 safety plans. Those were the layers of protection specific to your business that allowed you to operate safely. We need to anticipate that as many as a third of your workforce at any one time may become ill with COVID-19. And they may not be able to come back to you, whether you are a private company, a school, a front-line business or a healthcare site, now is the time that we have to prepare. It is not about public health orders and us telling you what to do. This is about activating all of those layers of protection available for your business in your situation to keep you from having to shut down because you don't have enough people to operate. So what do we need to do? We need to do just one thing. It is not about a rapid test. It is not about a mask that keeps one safe. It is about doing everything we can, all of us taking these measures to protect employees, our customers and our family and friends. Every layer of protection is not 100% effective. It is putting these pieces together that gives us the protection that we need to keep operating. We need to do to prepare anyone who can work from home. You should be able to do that. Give employees and customers the space they need to stay safe. Remind and reinforce the need to keep that distance from people. Have fewer people in the same location at once, whether you can stagger shifts, stagger start times and breaks, making sure that staff are not all eating lunch in a small, unventilated room together, using those barriers, plexiglass barriers, limiting the numbers of customers in the space at any one time. Using appropriate PPE protocols, ensure you have well-fitting, comfortable, three-layer masks and having the ability to do things like washing your hands regularly. And, of course, vaccine requirements. These are important. We know they are in place in many employment opportunities, but requiring them to declare their status so you understand the risk in your employees. And while vaccine right now won't stop all of us from getting infected with Omicron, it does significantly reduce the likelihood that we are going to have severe illness and be off for longer. It means that we can come back after that shorter five-day isolation period. And it means that long-term recovery is the risk of having long-term symptoms is reduced. And I think our schools are also doing a staggered start. And this is again, we know that schools are safe. They are the best and safest place for our children and they are essential. They are essential for their social and emotional development as well as intellectual development. And it is not because we have any concerns about that. It is because as we have watched what is happening with Omicron and how it is happening with Omicron, it is essential specifically to take stock and prepare plans to safely operate over the coming months with the potential for reduced staff and keeping children safely in school and reducing the risk of functional closures because of staff illness. It is essential that we keep our schools open for children just as we have kept grocery stores and pharmacies and hospitals open. This is going to be and remains our responsibility from everyone. From administrators and staff and teachers and parents and of course kids too. If your children are higher risk, it may mean things like pausing extracurricular activities to focus on school and the importance of school. Thankfully, we know that COVID-19 remains and even with the Omicron variant, it remains mild in most children. And we know that with the availability of vaccines, it reduces the risk dramatically more for children and for staff. Everybody in schools should be vaccinated and vaccines are the best protection for all of us. So while schools are most definitely a reflection and extension of our communities, they have not and we have seen this consistently and there is no reason to think it will be different now. They are not a major source of transmission. And schools, the measures that we have in place and adding in, going forward, some of the ones that we were using early on means that they are an important place to keep open for all students starting next week. As I said, this remains our highest priority and I know the highest priority of the tens of thousands of school staff, teachers, educators and parents and principals and the school district staff across the province and we are committed to making sure that we are getting children back as soon as possible and doing our best for our children across the province. And part of, of course, one of the important things that we have in schools is that we wear masks when we are in the classrooms, when we are in the school settings and I remind everybody that the best mask is the one that you wear, the one that you wear properly and consistently. And a good-fitting mask with three layers is equally protective if it is the one that you wear. Remember that the mask alone, of course, is not your only protection. You need to use all of these layers, including vaccination, keeping your distance, including minimizing the time that you are in a crowded indoor space, particularly if the ventilation is poor. I know some people have called for the increased use of respirators or N95s routinely and I will just say in the majority of settings, the retail store is minimal. What is most important is that you have a good-fitting mask that you wear and you wear appropriately. The other important thing, of course, is as much as possible if you are feeling unwell, to stay home and stay away from others until it resolves. Don't go to gatherings, no matter how small. And testing is, of course, important. We now, as you know, are at our limit of our PCR testing and we are looking to make sure we have that available for people who wear that test is important because they have underlying risk factors and may be eligible for treatments. So those are things that are really important right now and we are using the rapid antigen test that we have to be able to supplement that for people who have symptoms and are lower risk. I also want to say that I am looking at other areas in our community to make sure we have the best approach we can and physical activity, as I know, is incredibly important for our mental and physical well-being. And I want to thank those who operate gyms and fitness and dance studios for quickly supporting your communities by moving online during this period of high transmission in our communities. I know that this is incredibly important. At this point, team sports for youth and adults, we are trying to make it clear that no one, no matter your age, should be traveling for tournaments and I know there are some leagues that are trying to get around this by scheduling multiple games. This is not about trying to get around or skirt the rules. It's about taking measures that we need to be able to keep providing some of these activities and reducing the risk that we are going to be bringing this home with us, bringing Omicron to the sport guidelines, staying in your local sports areas, and I recognize this isn't exact, but we will do it, work with each of the sports and make sure that you know what the rules are. And I encourage you all to default to less, not more, during this risk period. Finally, on Friday, we made some, given the challenges and staffing that I heard about from our long-term care sector, particularly as we were going into this long weekend past, the instituted restrictions to essential visitors only over this past weekend. And the tent was always that once we got the rapid testing available and had more plans in place to support staffing that we would transition to one designated social visitor per resident in addition to essential visitors. I know and I know that there are seniors and elders in long-term care have been hardest hit by this pandemic. And we also know how essential having those social supports of visitors is. And we are committed to making sure we can get back to having your one designated social visitor as well as essential visitors as the rapid antigen testing is being rolled out across long-term care homes and as staffing allows in this coming week. This will be in place this week as these are being distributed to long-term care homes and every care home develops their plan to support this. A year ago we faced challenges yet we had the hope and promise of vaccines for all of us. And a year later that is absolutely so important for how we are going to get through this next phase as well. We all may be weary, but we can take away from what will be brighter days ahead. It is going to be a challenging few weeks, but we have the tools and we have that strong vaccine background that will get us through. We have faced adversity. And we have met head-on with unwavering resilience and kindness and adaptability and compassion. Please continue to use all of those layers you have available to you. And remind those around you to do that too, as we weather our pandemic storm together. Thank you. Thank you, Dr Henry. I wanted to let you know that we will be providing a COVID-19 bulletin this afternoon with daily numbers on case counts, vaccinations and outbreaks. Today I will be providing an update on the accelerated booster campaign. But I wanted just to give you a sense of the challenges in our hospitals, the situation facing our hospitals in terms of total number of patients. You will know that in our Q-care system we have 9,229 base beds. We have added 2,353 surge beds for a total of 11,582 beds. Today's patient census across the Q-care is 9,034, which is up over the last number of days. And obviously, lower than it was, for example, a month ago. In terms of critical care, we have 510 critical base, critical care beds and 218 surge critical care beds that are in place. We have today patient census of 454 critical care across BC. I think the challenge is the one that Dr Henry has talked about in terms of businesses, but it also is a key challenge for us in health care. It is why we are taking the measures we have taken in long-term care. It is not just to assure that we are taking the measures we have taken to ensure that beds are available and we have done this through a number of means, including the cancellation of non-urgent schedule surgeries starting in this period, in this January period, starting in this first non-stat or weekend day of January. But also other measures to make sure that we have a lower patient census and we already have so we are able to have space for COVID-19 patients, but it is also the case that we are going to be able to have this much COVID-19 in the community in ensuring staffing is in place. So those questions are being monitored every single day, but that is the current status of hospitalization in our province. With respect to the accelerated booster campaign, I just want to remind everyone that 4,399,000 British Columbians, 771 British Columbians have received their first dose of immunization of COVID-19, 4,136,540 their second dose. And as of last night, 961,014 have received their third or booster dose. That is in the over 12 population, 92% of all those over 12 received their first dose, 89% their second dose, 21% of their third dose. And since October 27, we have sent out 1,542,000 booster dose invitations. That is 40% of the other dose. And we have sent out 1,542,000 booster doses, 20% of the eligible population per booster. By the end of this coming week, we will have invited 46% of the eligible population. 950, as I said, some 960,000 boosters have been given in BC since the beginning of our booster campaign. And I want to just give you a sense of what groups have been focused on because we have focused, guided by the advice and support of public health, we focus on people who are the most vulnerable to severe outcomes. So 517,017,018 boosters are third doses for people 70 and above. That is more than 70% of the population, significantly more than that of the eligible population those who have received their first two doses. 630,866,000 for people 65 and over. That is almost 60%. And more than 50,000 of those over 60 as of last night had already received their third dose immunization. In addition, close to 100,000 healthcare workers, but 159,637 people who are clinically extremely vulnerable. Since New Year's Eve, December 31st, we have invited 378,634 people for boosters. And more invites are going out as we speak. And we will continue to invite those eligible over 18 over the rest of the week to clear all those by the end of this week all those who have passed six months since their second dose will have been invited to book by the end of this week. Following this, we will be inviting individuals as they become eligible at six months or 182 days from their dose two. Boosters are being booked in about 710 locations across the province. This is today and more sites are coming online daily in particular pharmacies and health authority clinics. And the number of pharmacies is increasing end of last week to this week by an additional 254 and another 200 in the middle of this month. All pharmacies are on the get vaccinated booking system. They are currently, as of today, 490,000 appointments open across the province. A capacity is growing on a daily basis. Newly added appointments are in pharmacies, both pharmacies and health authority clinics. They continue to revisit and try to move up their booking as capacity is coming on steam every day. If you wish to move your appointment for children 5 to 11, as of last night 134,822 people, children have been vaccinated in the 5 to 11 program with the Pfizer pediatric vaccine. 161,252 have booked an appointment. And 177,000 are now over 50% of the people who have been vaccinated. 177,000 are now over 50%. 177,831 have registered. Very much encourage everybody, everybody, all parents to register their children today to get the pediatric vaccine specially designed for children 5 to 11 today. As you can see, roughly 39% of all children have received from 5 to 11 and have received their first dose immunization. About 47,48% have booked an appointment and about 51,52% now are registered. But that number of registrations has to go up as the gap now between the number of people getting the vaccine and the number of people registered is closing. We obviously want more people to register. It will make children safer and of course your family safer as well. What will help us now is that this has helped us all along, adapting, adapting our practices and actions, adhering to public health orders and accepting the public health guidance offered, arranging to get our vaccines and boosters and applying our COVID sense and skills to all our interactions and encounters. This is of course one of and there have been many challenging times in our pandemic and that makes it our time to fight on. We have to continue to do this. It is a health system, all of us together to help people in these challenging times. To remember the great differences have always been made by our efforts. To acknowledge our efforts have made the essential difference all along. And to affirm to ourselves our continued efforts now will again make the difference we need. All of that is the case now and I encourage everyone to continue to join ourselves by getting vaccinated and following public health guidance and everyone we know, those that we love, those that we know and those that we do not know. Thank you very much. We are happy to take your questions. Thank you. As a reminder to reporters on the phone, please press star 1 to enter the queue. You are limited to one question and one follow-up. Please also remember to take your phone off mute as you can. Dr. Henry, considering what you said around functional closures, should British Columbians no longer anticipate that you are going to put restrictions in place and rather count on sectors to put in policies? And for example, with a Canucks game coming up potentially on Saturday, although COVID could postpone that, should the game put in place capacity limits rather than wait for a provincial order? A very good question. Capacity limits and the Canucks is something that we talk about on an ongoing basis and as you know, the game tomorrow has been postponed for a number of reasons and we are in ongoing discussions. But in terms of, I have said many, many times that I want to get out of the order business and I want to talk a little bit about that today. This is different. This strain of the virus is different. It is considerably different in how it presents in the shortness of the incubation period, in the shortness of illness for many people. And I just want to say I am very thankful that this strain has arisen now, not earlier on in this because with the transmissibility that we are seeing and the COVID-19 pandemic is such a large part of the population from vaccination. We would be in very, very challenging situations. So right now we have been through several phases of knowing what it takes to prevent transmission in many workplaces. And we spend a lot of time in BC with our COVID safety plans with different sectors so that we could keep things going if you remember back to many of the food processing measures that have come up with the important measures that would help reduce risk of transmission of illness. All of those need to be taken into account now. And it really is. Public health is reactive in terms of case management and contact tracing and outbreak management. But sectors now have the tools to do that from the experience that we have. And you need to because this is going to affect across the country, in other provinces, we are seeing that in other countries, everything from trucking to airlines having to cancel flights, those are the types of things we need to prepare ourselves for. Part of it is doing things to reduce transmission, to allow people to stay home if they are ill for that period of time, but also to have business continuity plans in place. And yes, I do think it is over and over again. It is how we need to get through this new wave together. And it is part of how we are working in schools to make sure that we can keep them open for the important role that they play, even though staff may be ill. And that is a large part of what schools, what our community colleges, our universities are doing this week in preparation for a full return next week. And I think we need to follow-up. I do, and it is a bit of a multi-parter with things that have gone unanswered over the last few days. Just trying to get a sense of whether the province is considering shortening the vaccine gap for kids. I know some jurisdictions are allowing kids 5 to 11 to get a second dose three weeks after the first. Is there any guidance about with so many new COVID cases? Is there guidance around whether or not they are getting a second dose? Should they be waiting longer or book immediately? And you alluded to this, Dr. Henry, is there any shift we have seen in how long people are staying in hospital with COVID now compared to before because of Omicron? So the first one, intervals for children, especially the 5 to 11, but also some of the 12 to 17. No, we are sticking with that for eight weeks for a variety of reasons. One, we know that even two doses is not going to prevent transmission from Omicron. And we know that even the first dose is really important for building up that strong antibody, but also that cell-mediated immune response. And that takes time to develop. And it's very clearly shown in adults from the work that we have done here in the last couple of weeks. And we know that the community that that extended interval is very important for having that mature, longer-lasting immune response. And we have no reason to believe that will be any different for children. So we are keeping the interval at the eight weeks because that gives you the best, longest lasting protection for whatever comes next. I think it's very clear we're going to be living up to the dose of vaccines that we can get for all. Excuse me, in terms of boosters, you can receive even if you've been infected, particularly right now with Omicron. We know lots of people are getting mild infections. When you are feeling better and recovered from that infection, then you can get your booster dose. And we do encourage you to get your booster dose. As we know, this virus is changing, and when we get to the virus itself, it can be to different parts of the virus, which sometimes gives us a stronger response to different proteins in the virus. But we know that the vaccine boosts that immunity, particularly to the spike protein, the one that binds into the cells. So it gives you super immunity, if you will, if you get both vaccine after you've been infected. So it is important to continue in any time after you're starting to feel better. You can get the booster shot. Third question was about length of stay of hospitalizations. And so that is something we're watching. We have seen a slight increase in hospitalizations. And we're doing a deep dive. We started on the weekend to understand not only, and we're seeing this in jurisdictions in other places as well, to understand how many people where COVID is detected once they've been admitted to hospital. We know that happens because we're doing screening in certain cases, sometimes before surgeries, for example. And how many people have underlying illnesses that may be exacerbated by COVID? And these are questions that we were talking about nationally this morning and over the weekend. Having a good understanding of actually how severe an illness is causing by age and by underlying risk factors. So those are details that we still are trying to gather. We don't have a high number of cases yet in hospital in BC. So that's something that, as I've said, we're watching really carefully to better understand the actual severity of Omicron compared to Delta, for example. But early indications show that in other parts of the world, and early indications here, that a shorter length of stay for people who are admitted with Omicron in people who are vaccinated. So that's something that we'll have more details on by next week. Our next question is from David Mulco, CTV. DR. ANNE WALCO, CTV. DR. ANNE WALCO, CTV. I'm just going to touch on what Richard asked, but perhaps put it a different way. One of the things you said just in the briefing, you said, with respect, you're the provincial health officer. When you say I want to get out of the order business, my jaw just hit the ground. I'll make the leap and say I'm not really the only one. So we're seeing more orders in places like Ontario indoor dining clothes. Quebec, a curfew, Manitoba just announced further school start delays, I think another week or two. So respectfully, help me pick my jaw up. Why isn't that, in your view, the path for us in British Columbia? Yeah, it's from the very beginning to the end of the day. I think we're going to be there as a last resort. When we want to make sure that people are absolutely doing things, and we want to do them in what we call the least restrictive means. That has always been our philosophy here and how we've moved forward. It's trying to find that balance of doing just enough so that we can prevent the surge on morbidity or mortality. And it goes back again, and I've said this many, many years ago, we're going to have a pandemic response. And the primary is to prevent serious illness, to prevent sickness and death, to prevent overwhelming of our health care system. And that's a really, really important one, because when the health care system gets overwhelmed and overwhelmed, as we saw in the north, for example, most recently, it means that people can't get care for other things, not just COVID. And thirdly, and really importantly, it's to minimize societal disruption. We know that there are really important downside effects on growth and development and mental health if we don't have schools open in person, for example, and that those can affect children for decades to come. So we have always tried to find that balance, and orders are in place to try and make sure that those things that are at need to be put to be shut are shut for that period of time, the least period of time possible. And this is, you know, I talked a little bit about people trying to skirt or bend the rules when we do have as many orders as we need to have in place, and thinking about, this is not about skirting the rules. It's about trying to reduce the risk from those highest risk situations and putting in place what we can to get us through this without overwhelming our health care system and minimizing the impact we have on society. And so that has been our approach here in BC from the very beginning, and we have done this together. We don't have to force people to close to be able to get people to do the right thing and to take those measures that get us through this as well. Thanks, and happy New Year by the way, but speaking of that tricky balance that you've mentioned, you know, I know you've said this and others have said this, you know, you can be accused of overreacting before things get worse and afterwards accused of really not acting fast enough, but I want to kind of look back over the last few weeks as Omicron quickly flared its head here in BC. This is a question both for you and for the minister. So if I look back on it, and I've said this many times, you know, that there's always trade-offs, and we try and find that balance and we agonize over those decisions. And I think one of the things that we've had in place is some baseline things for some time, things like mask-wearing and indoor public places. And it becomes more and more important to have those baseline measures in place. We've had restrictions on numbers of events and things. And then moving into the holiday period, again, trying to find that balance where we know that it is social gatherings and social connections and types of indoor activities that where we started to see this spread more rapidly. And as you know, we were coming off Delta, so we still had some very strong restrictions in place in some communities that were making a difference. So we were trying to find that balance earlier, including focusing on booster shots on the people who are more likely, most likely, to end up with more severe illness or end up in hospital. That's something that I think is really, really important. And it will be no surprise to you that I'm going to leave it at that because I think there's lots of time to second-guess things in the future. But we take every decision and find that balance that I was just talking about. I think what you've seen from public health and Dr. Henry is a clear response to the Oman-Khrom variant of concern we put in place public health orders where necessary. A change before last weekend into address issues and challenges in long-term care by temporarily limiting long-term care. And I think that's a important step to take. We took steps weeks ago to say that in January and gives us time to plan and prepare that we were going to delay non-urgent scheduled surgeries in January to prepare our healthcare system. And we haven't seen, I think you'll see when the report comes out at 3 o'clock today, you'll see an increase in hospitalizations. We haven't seen the dramatic increase they've seen in some jurisdictions, but we're preparing for that because we expect those numbers to go up in the coming weeks. So action on hospitalization, action on acute care. And I think the decision to focus our immunization, our booster program on those that are most vulnerable was a decision that was taken by our team, by Dr. Henry, Dr. Ballum, by the government on October 26, we laid out those priorities for people. And those eligible over 70 now have received their booster dose that, unlike many other jurisdictions, we focused on clinically vulnerable people, 1,000 of those on healthcare workers in indigenous communities. That supports us in these actions. But look, the Omicron variant of concern, we see it in many, many countries in the world and all the other jurisdictions in Canada, is causing a significant increase in transmission. It's in some ways a new pandemic or a changed pandemic. And we're going to continue to adapt and adjust every day, as I think our people in BC. And I think what's really important right now, and I'm happy people can assess and judge and they will, in BC. But I would say all of us have to assess these new circumstances and recommit ourselves to following public health guidance and orders. And when there are public health orders balanced in dealing with public health orders in the time, those public health orders need to be adhered to. And the public health guidance, you need to adhere to that too for your own health and those that you love. If we continue to do that, we're going to get through this period. This is immensely challenging and different than the Delta search, the previous waves we've seen, the Delta search or the challenges at the beginning of the pandemic, we can respond well to this situation as well. Our next question is from Lisa Cordasco, Vancouver Sun. I'd like to ask on behalf of advocates for those in long-term care, they're asking that you make it a requirement that every resident is entitled to an essential visitor. As it stands, about 25% of long-term care residents have a designated essential visitor. And I think that's a very important point. And the criteria is applied by individual care home administrators. And so they're asking, you know, will you make it a requirement that every resident is entitled to an essential visitor? Yes. We went through this last summer and working with the seniors advocate and the long-term care sector. And there's two different types of visitors that we recognize. Both are essential. One is a designated, as an essential visitor, in terms of they provide additional care to that individual and help them with certain things. And yes, that is a decision that's made between the residents and the facility. But the other one that is equally essential in the life and quality of life of residents is having social visitors. And so we are asking for additional social visitors. And so we have a designated social visitor that everybody, every resident is expected to be able to have at least one. We've had a provision for more than one. And then, of course, as you know, over the last little while, there's been unlimited numbers of visitors. As we're moving into this risk phase again, we know that residents are well protected. But because they're older and we have a number of people that are going in and out of long-term care homes during this high transmission period. So I did take the measure of restricting it to essential visitors for this past weekend because we were hearing about challenges with staffing and being able to screen visitors appropriately. And we now have rapid antigen tests that are designated for testing visitors and starting as soon as they are deployed in each facility, we'll be going to having every resident have their designated social visitor as well as their essential visitor being allowed and being able to visit with them anytime. Lisa, do you have a follow-up? Yes. Okay. I understand the history of the visitors and how they're designated. What I'm saying is that, okay, let's move on to the rapid test. I'm told also that there are long-term care homes that are being denied to long-term care homes. So under your plan, how many rapid tests can be expected to be received at long-term care homes this week? And will there be an exact protocol put in place that is required for every visit or required for the beginning of every shift of designated workers? So that is an urban myth that there's millions of rapid tests in a long-term care home somewhere. We have made rapid tests in their various forms available to long-term care for many months and they have been used in many long-term care. Particularly, you will recall, when we made it a requirement that long-term care staff all be vaccinated and there was a period of time when rapid tests were used in between times until people got their second vaccine, et cetera. So they have been available. We have been able to do this about two, three weeks ago. Specific rapid antigen tests, the nasal tests that are on the lateral flow that we have in and there's over 100,000 distributed and started last week to long-term care homes across the province and that's for every visitor on a daily basis to be tested prior to their visit. Did you want to mention anything? Our next question is from Camille Baines, Canadian Press. Hi, Dr. Henry. Thanks for taking my question. With your concerns about businesses keeping their doors open, do you foresee prioritizing booster shots for employees like course restore workers or teachers or any of those types of groups? Yes. So the way our immunization program rolled out, you will recall, is that many of our groups were prioritized for early access once we got through the over 70s essentially in March and April of last year. So yes, those are the people that are now, as of this past weekend, starting to get their invites for their booster shots. So we still want to maintain that six-month interval between dose 2 and dose 3, but many teachers, many other staff who are in the younger age groups will have started to receive their invites starting this past weekend. And that is, it's a combination of the interval and when people got their first and second doses of vaccine, so it automatically prioritizes those workers who were in those settings that were prioritized for getting their first and second doses as well. Camille, do you have a follow-up? Yes. What would you say to parents who are still reluctant to get their children vaccinated at this point? Yeah, you know, there's lots of reasons why parents, especially for the 5 to 11 year olds, have had concerns. I've talked to many parents about this. It's a different feeling when it's like, okay, I'll take that for myself. But they want, there's a little bit of a, I want to wait and see how it's going to work. And I want to understand all of the ins and outs of how this works and how the clinics work. And what I can tell you now is that we now have done over 170,000 5 to 11 year-old children. I've been there myself at many of the clinics. We have lots of really good information on millions of children around the world who have been vaccinated with this pediatric vaccine and it is safe. It's important for them. It's important to protect them. We know that this illness, thankfully, is still mostly mild in children, but some children do have serious illness. And there's a level of anxiety that I hear from young people in my life that they're afraid that they're going to get sick and bring it home or that they're going to pass it on to their friends. And this is an important thing that we can do to protect our children. This is a very safe vaccine and it works and it's good for all of our kids. And it's going to be one of those things that helps us get back to a normal school and after school activities for all our kids. Our next question is from Delana Nisha. Hi, Dr. Henry, thanks for taking my question. Just for some clarification within interior health, when residents of a community are being treated in hospital and are discharged, do they need to be tested for COVID-19 before returning to their living facility? That is the protocol that normally residents are transferred back to facility from a hospital or if they're an alternative level of care and they're waiting placement in a care home that they are tested prior to returning to that facility, yes. Delana, do you have a question? That's great. Thanks. The Jim owners we have spoken to want to see the data around COVID transmission and Jim, how and when will you be able to provide that to them? And if you could answer in English and French, please. I've talked to a number of the leaders in the fitness industry. They've been part of our ongoing work around where we put research and research into the where we put restrictions and I know these are challenging times and I can tell you that this isn't about skirting and bending the rules and some of the gyms are talking about this. It's also not about that gyms are doing things wrong. Most of them have been fantastic and they're doing a great job. The reality is and we've seen this repeatedly, that the type of activities that happen in fitness and in the spin classes, that these are indoor activities with adults in a group, even wearing masks where you know that the risk is higher. It's just is. It's same with travel. It's the same with certain industries that these are higher risk industries. And when we have a lot of transmission in our community, we have repeatedly seen the gyms become amplifiers and we've had a number of examples of that that we put in place. So while I may not have and certainly right now, I can't tell you every single case that's been linked to a gym, but we can tell you that we've seen this as a pattern, that these are environments that are higher risk and when there's a lot of transmission in the community, particularly in that age group, so the age demographic that is going to gyms that is highly connected and so there are people who are younger, who are younger and so we know that these transmission links are happening and it's spreading into higher risk settings. So it's not about these gyms are doing everything right in many cases, but the reputable ones understand that they're not going to put their staff and clients at risk when we're seeing the amount of transmission that we're seeing right now. And this will pass and I'm working very closely with the industry, with the sports groups to make sure that we can get back to doing safe activities in gyms as soon as possible, as soon as this wave passes. And I'm committed to that. I know that my gyms that I go to is doing amazing things online, one-on-one, and in groups and we need to do that for a period of time until we can get back to normal. It's a question of what we can do in what was necessary to close them, except for the virtual classes at the current time. It was necessary for its reasons. The transmission, the test positivity is eight times what it was before on the crown right now in BC. So some of the things that we were doing in the period before on the crown, we can't do that, but gyms didn't do what we asked them to do in the period beforehand, because we did work together on that and public health work very closely with the industry. But we're in a different situation now, that required that the action take place. Obviously, now that gyms are not open, that the information or the evidence you've asked for will not be attainable now, but public health rightly determined that they will not be able to do that. So we're in this period of very high transmission of COVID-19. Bell, do you have a follow-up? Yes, please. When you consider the types of situations that could force the closures of schools, what level of thickness would have to be in place to trigger such a closure, how much notice would parents be given if the school was about to close and once it closes, why there's a number of days here for staff to address all of those specific questions. Those are the things we've been working with them. What are the protocols for reporting of how many people are absent, whether it's students or staff for sickness, what type of illness are we seeing? These are things that we have in place for influenza and norovirus outbreaks in the community. We want to put them together and make sure that they're school-specific and district- specific. So there's what the planning scenarios we're looking at, and I talked a little bit about this for business, is up to 10% of staff are off ill. What do you do then? Up to 30%. How do we manage and what triggers would mean going to some sort of a hybrid? How would we manage it with those protocols in place? Because it will vary. School in a small community where there's not as many staff available to support. How do you have mixed classes if you need to support with students off and staff off? Those are all the things that are being worked through this week and why we had a phased return so that we could have those clearly articulated and parents will hear from their districts about that. It is not possible for us to report cases and exposure events in the same way, given the transmission that we're seeing. So how that will be reported from schools to parents and public health will be supporting schools in doing that is also how we need to work that through this week. Our next question is from Lisa Yuzda, City News. I'm hoping Dr Henry, you can talk through, in Toronto today, John Torrey was talking about how the transmission is going to happen next week from now. What kind of timeline are we looking at here over the next month or two? Yes, I didn't hear that, but I think that's probably more pessimistic than I'm seeing. When I look at what's happening in other countries, we look at Denmark, we look at the UK, obviously South Africa, when we started to see the rapid rise, it's hard to know when we're going to see that. I think with the shorter incubation period, the shorter length of illness that we're probably going to see a shorter peak than what we've seen with previous waves, but it is day by day looking at what we're seeing, and what we're trying to do is flatten that out a bit, which will extend it somewhat, but if we can flatten it out, then we can protect better our health care system, because even a small proportion of people needing hospital care can have such a dramatic impact on the health care system. So I won't venture to say, but I hope that it will be shorter than another four to six weeks for sure. Please, do you have a follow-up? You're talking about mitigating or figuring out how schools will manage the 10% is off, 30% is off sick. Looking at hospitals in our health care system, when are we going to hit the point of two-quartal code oranges at hospitals in Ontario? When are we looking at that happening here, and how is that mitigated? If a couple of the hospitals here in the island or in Metro Vancouver are code orange, how do others absorb it? What happens in the worst case scenario? This is something that we are also planning for. I talked a little bit about the priorities of my partner, Deputy Minister Stephen Brown, and we've been looking at this for some time. It is part of our pandemic planning scenarios is how to maximize the work force. So one of the big things is making sure everybody is vaccinated. That was an important key point in trying to preserve our healthy health care workers. Looking at the period of time of isolation that's required, looking at who is going to be vaccinated. We have specific competencies and specific jobs so they can backfill, maximizing hours, and I know we've had in some places to ask people to come back off holidays. So there's a whole series of measures that we're taking, looking at our health human resources, recognizing that we've been stretched. We've been stretched prior to the pandemic, and people have been stretched to the limit and beyond during this last pandemic. So we're making sure we can continue to scale up our immunization programs and some of the things like scaling back on surgeries is a really important thing. There are a number of public health activities that we are no longer doing so we can support the activities in the pandemic. So this is an ongoing health human resource planning that we've been doing for some weeks. And we'll continue to do. One of the things that Quebec has talked about is allowing healthcare workers with mild or asymptomatic COVID to come back to work. So we do have protocols for that, should that be required, because that would be absolutely a last resort and we would only want them to work with COVID patients for example so that we wouldn't increase risk anywhere else in a facility, but the protocols for how that would happen, what we would do to make sure that that's all the time we have today for questions. This concludes today's event. Thank you everyone for joining. Thank you.