 Good afternoon, my name is Adrian Dix, I'm BC's Minister of Health, to my right is Dr. Bonnie Henry, BC's provincial health officer, to my left is Dr. Penny Ballam, the executive lead of our BC Immunization Plan. And all of us are honored to be here on the territory of the Lekwungen speaking people of the Songhis and the Esquimalt First Nations. Today you'll be seeing a presentation from Dr. Henry and Dr. Ballam on the Immunization of Children 5-11. Just wait for the bells. The Immunization of Children 5-11 and our regular report on COVID-19 in schools. And with that, it's my honor to introduce Dr. Bonnie Henry. Thank you very much and good afternoon. I want to start by just acknowledging that we have been through a lot here in BC in the last few weeks. It's said that adversity introduces us to ourselves. And we in BC have experienced much more than our share of adversity this past 20 months from COVID to heat domes, to wildfires and smoke. To the tragic discovery of unmarked graves of children who didn't return home. And now of course to the floods and the landslides. But we have seen that people in BC are generous and kind and resourceful and brave. And I just wanted to start today with acknowledging that and that we will get through this together. That we are, we have some light that we're going to talk about today and being able to protect younger children now against COVID-19. And that we do have this ability to get through adversity together. And where I come from, we have a saying that common suffering builds strong bonds. We are building strong bonds here in BC. And that is what will help us get through this and will help us build back. Before we get into the vaccine details, I want to share a few other updates. Today the BC CDC published the results of the speak to survey that we participated in earlier this year. And it will be no surprise that the survey results show how difficult this pandemic has been on children and families. And that's one of the reasons we have worked so hard to keep our schools open. We know that school communities are very important support network for kids and families. And so that information is available for people. But we know as well that families are not the only ones who have struggled. This pandemic and the various adversities that we have faced have been challenging for all of us. And understandably it's put a strain on many people, on our mental health, on levels of anxiety. And for some the upcoming holidays can also be stressful and difficult. I want everyone to know you are not alone. And if you're feeling overwhelmed or anxious or unable to cope, there are resources that we have to support you. I encourage you to call 811 to go to bouncebackbc.ca Our First Nations Health Authority here in BC has some wonderful resources for First Nations people that you can access online or call 1-855-242-3310. As well we have a crisis line that Métis Nation BC has established, which is 1-833-Métis BC or 1-833-638-4722. The Kids Helpline is also a 24-hour phone counseling, web counseling and referral service for children and youth. And I know it's been well used and it is there for you now too. And that to speak to a counsellor it's 1-800-668-6868. And I would also encourage people to go to our BC CDC website where there's lots of useful information and supports specifically for COVID-19. We do have light, as I said, at the end of this tunnel. And one of the important things that we have is ongoing tools that help us protect each other from COVID-19. And I'm going to present some of the information today and then turn it over to Dr. Ballin to talk more about details. So we do know, I just realized that the screen is behind me now so I'll have to put my glasses on so I can actually read when I'm looking. So this is the data on pediatrics, so children, COVID cases over the last few weeks. So this is the November school report for K-12 that will be posted on the BC CDC website later today. Thankfully, in this past week, up to November 22nd, we've seen a decrease in the number of children infected with COVID-19, particularly in the 5 to 11 age group. As you will remember from our previous reports, that had been increasing quite a lot in the middle of September and into October. We've now seen it fall below 500 for the first time in some time. As well, we've seen a lowing of the 12 to 17 age groups as well. And really importantly, in this week in November between the 16th and the 22nd, we have had no more children admitted to hospital, requiring critical care, and we've had no deaths. And through this pandemic, we have had no deaths in school-age children. And I think that's really important for us to remember. This virus, thankfully, does not cause a severe disease in most children. But as we've seen, as cases and numbers have increased and transmission has increased, particularly with the Delta variant that we're seeing now, children are not immune and some of them will have severe illness and will require critical care. And we know that there's also been long COVID in some children, as well as 19 children have been admitted to hospital with MISC, the inflammatory syndrome caused by COVID-19. So while it's important for us to put it in context, it is also important to remember and recognize the impact this pandemic has had on children and families. If we look at the cases in hospitalizations and deaths since January of this year in younger children in the 0 to 4 age group, what we see is in the 5 to 8 and 9 to 11 age group is where we have seen the most dramatic increase in this fall season. And in both those cases, it's now coming down. A plateaued a little bit in the 9 to 11. And what we've seen is a steady decrease in the 12 to 17-year-old age group in people, children getting sick in that age group. And that corresponds with the increasing rates of vaccination in that age group. Thankfully, hospitalizations remain rare as due deaths, but they are not non-existent. There has been cases, particularly as we increase numbers of children who have been affected by COVID-19. When we look at where children are being affected, again, what we see is that the cases in children reflect transmission in communities. And transmission in communities reflects the protection through vaccination and the fact that vaccination reduces the transmission risk. So what we do see is particularly in the 0 to 8 and the 9 to 11-year age groups, the increases have been most dramatic in the interior health region and northern health region. And very recently in the last week, we're starting to see decreases in those areas again. What is striking, though, is where we have vaccination of 12 to 17-year-olds, there's been that steady decrease. And in those communities, those areas like Vancouver Coastal in particular and areas of Fraser Health where the immunization rates are high, the rates of transmission in children have remained low. So if we look at the rates of cases by age, so this is rate per 100,000 population across the age group starting in January of 2021 up until November 21st, we can see that in all age groups we're starting to see a sustained decrease in the last two weeks. But that we had a dramatic increase in the younger age groups and not so dramatic in the 12 to 17 as the immunization rates increased. If we break this out, however, by vaccination status, then it really tells us the picture of what's happening. So we can see quite clearly that the rates of COVID-19 in 12 to 17-year-olds who are not vaccinated are dramatically higher than those children who are vaccinated. And that holds across the board. It really shows us how well this vaccine is protecting people of all ages against transmission of this virus. And that, of course, reflects and what we're seeing in schools and communities around the province as well. So since the beginning of September, we've had exposure notifications. So that's when a child or a staff person has been in the school during their infectious period. There have been 2,975 exposure notifications posted around the province, although more of these are in areas where there are more transmission in the community. So that's in 830 schools. So 45% of schools have had an exposure notification in that school, and that's up until November 13th. Of those, there have been 382 clusters in 217 schools. So exposure notifications reflect what's going on in the community, not necessarily reflecting a risk within the school environment. So a cluster is when we have two or more cases within 14 days where there's been transmission likely in the school setting. So we've had 382 clusters in 12% of schools. So in 88% of our schools across this province, we have not had any transmission events in those schools. And I think that's good news as well. It tells us that what's happening in the schools is working to support children. And this was up until November 6th. Of the clusters that we do have, they've ranged in size from 2 to 18 with the median size being 3. So that's a little bit elevated from what we saw last year in Vancouver and Fraser Health where the detailed cluster investigations showed the median size of the clusters was 2. And again, reflects the increased transmissibility of the virus strain that we're seeing right now. The other thing that we've noted up until November 6th, we have had four reported outbreaks in schools. And so an outbreak is when there's increased transmission beyond just a cluster and where there's been additional measures that needed to be taken, including going to remote learning, either for the classroom or the entire school. And the size of the four outbreaks that have been reported in this reporting period range from 36 to 67 cases. Since November 6th, there have been two additional school outbreaks that have been reported, including one today in Northern Health. So again, outbreaks are rare events, but it is important because of the disruption that they cause. And we know that not only outbreaks and clusters, but the exposure events create anxiety and concern and increased testing burden in children. One of the things that will come out in the situation report for schools that's posted today is investigation of these cases, particularly around the clusters in schools, shows us that most of the transmission in school-aged children happens in the community or at home. And many times that's the same thing where children have social groups outside of the school setting where there's transmission as well, and then the same group of children are in the school setting together. So if we look at this in terms of risk of COVID-19 for school-aged children compared to vaccine-related concerns, and we've looked at this specifically for those children 12 to 17 years of age, we can see that the risk of getting COVID-19 in BC is about 10 times higher among those children 12 to 17 who are not vaccinated. So the rate is up to 4,000 per 100,000 population compared to 300 in the vaccinated children. But really importantly, the risk of hospitalization for children who are not vaccinated is about 37 per 100,000, and we have had no hospitalizations. No hospitalizations in children 12 to 17 who have been vaccinated with even one dose of vaccine. And really that speaks to how effective these vaccines are, and we've seen this across age groups at preventing severe illness, and that's important for us to remember. As I mentioned, we've had 19 cases of MISC, and the average age of those children is 9. And we've also had, we want to compare that to what we see with adverse events following vaccination. And the risk of experiencing a serious adverse event is about 2.7 per 100,000. And compare that to the risk of hospitalization when somebody is infected. So there's been 133 adverse events following immunization reported from children 12 to 17. And most of these are mild. They're things like fever, headache that lasts for several days, or a rash and swelling at the site of the injection. There have been 14 serious events which required hospitalization, and all of those children have recovered and been discharged. The primary reason for a serious adverse event being reported is a severe allergic reaction or anaphylaxis reaction. So what we see from this and what we've learned from immunization of older children, what we've seen around vaccination around the world, that long-term effects are very, very rare. This shows us the pattern that we're seeing when lots of children are being vaccinated. We do get reports of adverse events. Most of them are mild. And the occasional report, as I said, of serious adverse events. This reminds us that even though these mRNA technology is new to vaccines, it's not new to medicine. We've been using them for a long time. We've been using them for specific treatments for things like cancer treatments. They've been used to try and develop the influenza vaccines, other types of vaccine technology. So I think it is important that we do know a lot about these. Whether it's a new formulation, it's not a new thing to medicine to understand how mRNA works. So that is a nice segue into the fact that we now have another tool that we can use to protect children from COVID-19. And that is, as of Friday last week, Health Canada has approved for use the pediatric formulation of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine for children age 5 to 11 years of age. And so this is a smaller dose. What they did was a dosing studies that looked at the adult dose, which is 30 micrograms of the mRNA. And they looked at smaller doses and it turned out that the one-third dose, so 10 micrograms, gave just a strong and immune response in younger children as the adult formulation. So that is the dose that is specific to younger children. And that is because, not the size of children, but it's because our immune systems when we are younger are just that much more responsive. So that's the amount of antigen that was needed to give the same degree of a strong response as we saw in adults and older children. So that's important. The other thing I think is really important other than that this vaccine is tailored to younger children and their immune systems is that Health Canada's role as our independent regulator is to do a thorough review of the safety data, to review the data on how well the vaccine works in children at that age group, manufacturing data from the company. And this rigorous and independent review really can give us confidence that as it's approved by Health Canada it is safe for use and we can trust that in our children. And vaccination of children is important for a whole variety of reasons, some of which I've talked about already. We know that it's important to protect children individually because we cannot always tell who's going to get the severe disease. It's also important to allow children and families to get over some of the very severe disruptions we've had from the pandemic in our lives and this especially as this fourth wave with the Delta variant continues to spread and we've seen that children in this age group are making up 20% of the cases that we're seeing right now. It also helps children and families get safely back to those many important cases. And it also helps children get both their physical and mental health as we've been through this last as one of the young people in my life said this is their third school year that's been affected by this. And the vaccine also reduces that risk of transmission to children's close contacts particularly people who are older or may have a risk of more severe illness and that's something that I also hear from young children at home and making the other loved ones in their lives sick. There's a couple of differences so Health Canada has approved this and at the same time the National Advisory Committee on Immunization came out with recommendations for use of the vaccine. One of the things that is slightly different Health Canada approved it for use for the second dose at a minimum of 21 days when NASA looked at that information and also looked at the information that we have about how the extended interval gives stronger and longer lasting protection so the optimal interval that's recommended by the National Advisory Committee is 8 weeks between dose 1 and dose 2 and we'll be using that for the most case here in BC as well. One other thing that NASA talked about was a cautionary thing that as much as possible to not give other vaccines within 14 days of this pediatric vaccine and we've looked at that here in BC and I think from a functional point of view a practical point of view we don't want to make children wait to receive this vaccine given the rates of transmission we're seeing and we don't want children not to be protected for some of the other vaccine preventable illness particularly influenza so while we're not going to be giving them together for the most part we will not be requiring people to delay either one vaccine whether it's influenza or the Pfizer the pediatric vaccine, the COVID vaccine or if they've recently received one of their booster doses for the school based vaccination programs things like meningitis or MMR we won't ask them to delay receiving their COVID-19 vaccine as well that's a little bit of information about what we're seeing in childhood illness and I'm now going to end the pediatric vaccine program that we're very excited has been finally approved for use for younger children and I'll turn it over to Dr. Ballum to tell you how we're going to do that Thanks so much Dr. Henry and Minister Dix very happy to be here this is as Dr. Henry's outline this is a very exciting day competing the approval of the vaccine for these smaller children and as Dr. Henry has outlined this is like a major step forward now in continuing to continuing on the journey of getting our communities back to as close to normal as will be following the pandemic there are 350,000 children who are eligible for the pediatric vaccination program for COVID-19 in our province we've spent some time prior to the approval last Friday with our pediatric colleagues across all the different disciplines to see if there's a need from their perspective to prioritize any particular group of children and their advice to us is there's a lot of vaccine we've got a lot of experience now running this program let's get these children vaccinated as quickly as possible and that that's going to be far more help than trying to triage different subgroups to arrive one in front of the other so very happy we're going to open up this campaign we have a lot of registrations happening already on the get vaccinated website we've probably registered about a quarter of the 350,000 children so we're ready to go and we will be proceeding with the campaign when our clinics open on the 29th of November next Monday these children will require a consent from their parents their legal guardian foster parent or a caretaker within the family such as a grandmother if there are children this can be a verbal consent given at the clinic these children we know from parents they will be allowed to accompany their kids to get vaccinated for COVID and they will be able to just give a verbal ascent to the vaccination we have been asked by different groups particularly in the school system if another adult is going to take a number of children in to get vaccinated who are not the legal parent or guardians can they provide consent and we've asked them to bring a written consent with the contacts of the parent and bring kids in order to get vaccinated as well as Dr Henry has said this is a specially formulated vaccine for children and the real advantage that we have particularly in view of the last 10 days of our weather events is that it's stable at 4 degrees for a long period of time 10 weeks which is a very different situation from the other vaccines that we've been dealing with as you know I just want to make sure I'm on the right slide just another little nuance for this campaign children must have had their 5th birthday they have to be 5 in order for them to be eligible for the vaccine and now 11 year olds will receive the pediatric vaccination until they turn 12 and after their 12th birthday they will be eligible for the adult dose and if a child is 11 receives the pediatric vaccination for their first dose and then they turn 12 within the 8 week time frame they will get the adult dose for their second dose I think Dr Henry has covered the interval and the other thing that's really important is that we're really encouraging parents to register their children in the get vaccinated system it's a system that they're familiar with we've done over 8 million vaccinations using that system it's fabulous it will allow them to get an invite through email or text and they will then be able to book into a clinic at their convenience for their child or their children to get vaccinated the other thing that's a basic really important part of this campaign is whether it's a unique clinic or a mixed clinic where we're also doing some adults we will have specific and unique child friendly child appropriate attributes of those spaces to make sure children feel comfortable that their parents are comfortable that there's room for children and their parents and other family members and that they have the time that's needed to get them vaccinated and as you'll see special quiet places if a child is having a difficulty we need this to be aligned with best practice around childhood vaccination easy steps on the next slide whoops there we go there we go familiar steps to many many people who have used our get vaccinated system first you have to register and as I said that's well underway we have over 90,000 children and this 350,000 cohort registered step 2 is they will get an invite the invites will start going out early early in the morning of Monday, November 29 and they will begin immediately to book themselves into a clinic including there will be clinics open for that day we are going to have the invitations basically go out in the same order that people were registered there's no need to do it starting with the older children in this age group down to the youngest what we want to encourage is families to be able to bring all their eligible children at the same time so that would be great we are trying to stress that drop-ins are difficult for us especially at this time when we're trying to get a number of campaigns through and we're a little constrained with healthcare staff and immunizers we have a lot going on as you know in our healthcare system we've had these weather events we've had a lot of stress on our system so we're asking that people make an appointment book themselves into a clinic and please avoid a drop-in that can result in cues and children waiting longer which is not a good thing when they're coming to get vaccinated and finally as I said when it's their time at their clinic to get vaccinated even if they have several children we're asking families just bring them all in if you have one child who has their appointment you just go in at that time and then you can bring their other siblings who are eligible for vaccination and we'll do everyone at the same time and if there are adult parents who have not yet finished their series and are outstanding for a dose two or potentially a grandparent or a sibling in the 12 to 17 year old group that hasn't been vaccinated or is waiting and delaying a second dose we really want to take care of the immediate family needs as they come to the clinic with their young 5 to 11 year olds so as they go on the registration system and to actually book themselves into a clinic there's going to be three naming categories that we'll use to understand what's available to them first is what we're calling family clinics and those will be clinics where we're actually not doing any of the other streams like boosters or dose one and dose two for the adults in our population we will be just dedicating these clinics to 5 to 11 year olds and their immediate families who come with them they'll likely be small clinics they're not going to be everywhere and try and use them strategically in communities where we're concerned about making sure we reach the 5 to 11 year olds and their parents so that's what a family clinic will be there will be other clinics that are only for 12 and up individuals in our public and those will largely be the pharmacies we are not going to put the pediatric vaccine in the pharmacies they will already be dealing with the booster campaign the dose one and dose two of 12 and above and at this time we feel it's not not indicated to put the pediatric vaccine in the pharmacies but the parents have also indicated to us in the province that they're they prefer to come into the community clinics that they're familiar with from their own vaccinations and so those will be there will be all age clinics where they'll be very familiar but we will have a special channel for children and that channel will be clear our processes will be very protected to give those kids more time with their vaccination to have a quiet space if children are having a problem to make sure it's the pediatric vaccine that they're getting and just to make it a very very safe quiet and thoughtful environment with kid friendly practices immunizers who are actually well versed in how to vaccinate children and make them feel safe around that so to that point we do have many immunizers who as Dr Henry has indicated have been involved in school campaigns have been involved in our flu campaigns and are very familiar with vaccinating children of all ages from very very little to this cohort of 5 to 11 and on up we will be redeploying as many as possible of those vaccinators and immunizers to actually be in the child specific clinics and in the pediatric channel that we'll have in our mixed clinics for all comers we will also as I said have onsite supports and we know that some children are challenged by a fear of needles a fear of vaccination they may have special needs children in the disability community often have special needs and we will be working to ensure that we have that capacity in our clinics and that we're working with our stakeholders in the community who can provide us lots of input and advice to make sure that we're addressing the issues that are critical a calm and private space for families with children who are who need that as part of their vaccination experience and who need help with needle anxiety we have a lot of resources a lot of great evidence from Canada we've got a lot of great literature different videos, YouTube videos with children talking to children cartoon characters in some of them I think there's a lot of work has been done around making vaccination a safe place for children and COVID vaccination is no different and we'll be taking advantage of all those things and sending families to access those resources prior to coming to the clinic now we have children as you know in small communities and very remote communities around the province many of those very remote communities are First Nations communities and you know as you know we've been to those communities on several occasions now for dose one for dose two now for our booster doses we're making the pediatric vaccine with the First Nations health authority who've done a lot of work on creating appropriate resources for their communities their children the elders parents who are all involved in raising their children and making sure that they're comfortable with this pediatric vaccination program we will often at that same time as they're vaccinating all children for COVID we will be offering boosters for elders and first and second doses to any members of the community who remain unvaccinated or a midway through their vaccination series there are lots of other communities as well around the province that are small and the health authorities where it's appropriate with the FNHA and sometimes in their own clinics we'll be offering what we call whole of community clinics we'll now be able to offer the vaccine the pediatric vaccine for five to 11 and then the vaccines for the 12 and over groups whether they're requiring boosters dose one or dose two so this is a really great chance to pick up where not withstanding our very high vaccination rates in British Columbia of which we're very proud and it's making a big difference to our province it's another chance to any and all of the members of communities that still need to complete their vaccination as well as introducing the vaccine to their small children those communities small communities who have whole of community clinics I invite you to look on the health authority websites they're listing their schedule for those and they will be working with community leaders local governments, mayors MLAs and other supporters and in the case of First Nations First Nations elected councils and their elders to make sure everyone's ready when the vaccine program arrives in their community what we know from talking to parents around our province about this campaign is that there's a lot of enthusiasm for the vaccine program we've seen published data from across Canada British Columbia is one of the leaders in terms of the intention of parents to have their children vaccinated in this age cohort and we've confirmed that in our discussions with parents across our province from our own surveying and essentially it's really important they told us a few things they said they really want good information they want to have it accessible they have children with different kinds of needs and they need information give them the best chance to make the right decision and make sure that vaccination experience is a good one so they want information about how and why vaccination is the best protection for their children is it safe and I think Dr Henry has spoken to our confidence and our strong assurance that this is a safe vaccine that it's very, very effective and it's a good thing for parents to do to consider getting their children vaccinated they want to know that we're taking steps to make the vaccine clinics child friendly and meet their needs and they also want to know what they can do as parents to help get their child ready for a vaccine and as I said there's actually lots of great resources both for parents and for children themselves to watch and learn about how to get ready themselves and how to have their parents contribute to that work. We have a lot of really great experts in our province, in the health authorities amongst our pediatric community we have a vaccine evaluation center at BC Children's Hospital that provides great advice to parents and speaks from an evidence base from all of their work and studies on these issues our medical health officers and Dr Henry and her team we have a lot of people that are there as a resource for parents as they work through their decisions around their children so in summary we want to keep our kids safe we want to keep their family members and the rest of our community safe and we want to get back to our lives and put COVID as a pandemic behind us and so we really want to encourage register your children today and register any other children you have that remain unvaccinated and you know at the end of the day there are many many resources for our parents to access for teachers to access as they're talking to children in schools there's a lot of activity that has come to light that will help inform the decisions help people feel comfortable help with specific and unique problems and so we believe that there are the resources that parents have asked for out there so I just want to thank you for today and just say we're very very excited about this campaign and we'll be working hard to get these kids vaccinated over the next couple of months in British Columbia thank you very much thank you Dr Bellem, thank you Dr Henry just a few updates as part of our regular Tuesday updates and then we'll look forward to moving on to the next few questions I'd like to briefly mention the requirement for members of the BC Public Service to be vaccinated yesterday end of day was the deadline to provide proof of vaccination ministries are finalizing their reporting over the next couple of days and submitting that to the BC Public Service Agency we anticipate being able to provide preliminary data on compliance with this policy either Friday or early next week our focus right now is on the necessary follow up actions whether that's addressing any requests for accommodation or moving those who remain unvaccinated onto unpaid leave the vast majority and I mean the vast majority of public servants just like the vast majority of British Columbians are fully vaccinated because they recognize how important that is for their families for their colleagues and for their communities and we continue to strongly encourage those who haven't done so to make the choice to be vaccinated so they can continue their important work in the public service regarding contract tracing efforts in BC we now have a total of 1,616 people working in contact tracing as of November 19 this exceeds the number of contact tracers in the place for the third wave the highest number reported was 1,563 in May of this year and a note with respect to critical care patients being transferred from northern health to other health authorities that number is now and 35 including 9 since last Thursday 7 of which were from the 2 Peace River local health areas this obviously and we've noted this many times in each individual case requires an enormous effort both outgoing the effort by our teams of ambulance paramedics and nursing and medical teams in each and every case and obviously leaves people at a very serious time for their health far away from their families but it does indicate the continuing challenge especially in the northern health authority you'll know that yesterday overall test positive in the province was 3.4% that's across the province that included 16% in the northern health authority and I would say overall we report on this in terms of acute care capacity we have 9,229 beds in BC we've added 2,353 surge beds as of Monday morning the patient population across BC hospitals is 9,166 510 critical care beds and 218 surge critical care beds the number of people in critical care as of Monday morning was 458 obviously this varies as to hospitals some hospitals face real and fundamental challenges most notably Royal Inland Hospital I want to thank all the staff and teams at that hospital for their continued work to put it in context Royal Inland is the only hospital whose current population is above base and surge capacity Royal Inland is 259 surge capacity is 20 and the current patient population is 292 nonetheless and they are facing as you know a number of COVID-19 outbreaks involving approximately 50 people in spite of that since November 1 when we made the difficult decision to reschedule non-urgent surgeries more than 592 surgical procedures have been completed at Royal Inland including 420 scheduled urgent and emergent procedures and 172 urgent or emergent unscheduled procedures so the exceptional work being done at that hospital by healthcare staff is something we recognize we also note the very significant increase in staff at Royal Inland and hiring of staff for the recent months which I reported on recently but include 89 new registered nurses, LPNs and healthcare assistance staff have been onboarded since September 13, 2021 alone and this week's update on surgery I note that some surgeries continue to be postponed as health authorities respond to COVID-19 and the state of emergency arising from the extreme weather and flooding from November 14 to November 20 health authorities postponed 375 non-urgent scheduled surgeries that's 197 in the Fraser Health Authority 3 in Northern Health 6 in Vancouver Coastal Health 10 in Vancouver Island Health and 159 in Interior Health in Fraser Health 173 of those post moments were severe flooding and landslides impacting five hospitals Abbasford Regional, Chilliwack General Langley Memorial, Ridge Meadows and Surrey Memorial hospitals that means cumulatively from September 5 to November 20 there have been 3,221 surgical post moments despite these post moments surgeries are of course continuing around the province and some exceptional work is being done across the province under very challenging circumstances the most recent reporting period 6,898 surgeries were completed from October 24 to October 30 which continues to demonstrate the extraordinary work done by healthcare workers, healthcare professionals health sciences professionals, surgeons and nurses in closing I want to say that there have been moments of great significance throughout the pandemic moments of possibility and this is obviously one of them the opportunity today on Friday today's announcement on vaccines for young children is one such moment it seems to me it's one we've all waited for a moment for a little bit I think it's fair to say and one we've hoped for and with so much in our lives right now to occupy our thoughts and direct our action it is I think a moment worthy of note even pause a pause to remind ourselves that as committed as we are to helping others in need others are equally committed equally focused in their effort they produce a moment like this that makes our work easier that eases our burden and in that not only restores us and drives us forward but renews our spirit as well that's the power in today's news on vaccines for children 5 to 11 thank you very much we're happy to take your questions and I welcome Dr Henry back to the podium with a reminder to media on the line please press star 1 to enter the queue you'll be limited to one question and one follow up our first question today goes to Shannon Patterson CTV oh hi Dr Ballum are these new clinics that are being opened some of these clinics I know quite a few of the mass clinics have already closed down are you reopening new locations where will they be located will they be large spaces like the convention center or will they be smaller ones and how far will people have to travel will they be enough of them that people won't have to travel far or in some communities they have to travel quite a distance to find one yes thanks so much for the question we don't have many of those very large clinics we saw during the big surge in vaccination of June and July August of this year most of those facilities have gone back to their normal use which is a good signal so our clinics we will build on the existing clinics that you're familiar with that we're using for our booster campaign there will be some smaller family specific clinics that we're strategically going to be placing at the health authority level in some cases we will use school sites not to be vaccinated during school hours but as a facility that can be used after hours and parents can attend with their children so it will be a variety of different locations and places we will be opening up some new child specific clinics family clinics that we haven't had open before but we will certainly be leveraging our existing clinics as well Shannon do you have a follow up yeah so you said 91 thousand have already registered and those people will be first in line to get their text to book can all 91 thousand expect a text on Monday 30 thousand and if I were to register my child today when could I expect to get a text but it's my child's turn well basically what we're what we've planned is that we feel that we will be able to get through this cohort by the end of January and we use part of the reason we like the get vaccinated system and it does allow us to issue invites consistent with the immediate capacity that we have so we will be watching it very carefully the health authorities will be placing their capacity on the get vaccinated system so that when you get an invite you can go and book and you'll see where space is available for a period of time you know out into the future and you know we likely won't send out 90 thousand invites all at the same time but we will be we believe we will have capacity between now and Christmas to vaccinate a good number of these children next question Lisa Cordasco Vancouver son okay thank you you mentioned that you came to the conclusion that the intention of parents to immunizing their children is very high in British Columbia can you put some numbers to that or names of studies or surveys that you've looked at any data that you can share on that sure so we've done a number of studies at the vaccine evaluation center they've done their spring study as well as some of the work that's been done by our behavioral folk BCCDC and other places and in general we tend to be higher than the polls that we've seen presented nationally and from the example that we have from the vaccine evaluation center it was 68% of parents were wanting to have their children vaccinate and another 20% said they're absolutely going to vaccinate their children in the next little while so those are the types of numbers that we're seeing here in BC so slightly higher and I think what we'll see is similar to what we saw when the vaccines first came out that once they're available for people once we get a level of comfort and how well they're working and people see that others around them are being vaccinated and that we'll see an increase in people having that confidence to book them their own children in as well Lisa do you have a follow-up? Yes, do you believe as some critics have charged that you're messaging that COVID is... I was just going to say the one other thing that we're watching really carefully is the experience in other countries and we know that close to 3 million children now have been immunized in the United States and I've been on calls with my colleagues from Region 10 so Washington, Alaska and Oregon and they've really had a really positive experience with children and what we have not seen are any other safety signals that have come up with the 3 million children in the US so those are things that we'll be making sure that parents are aware of as well so sorry Lisa, I didn't mean to interrupt you Thank you Lisa, please proceed with your follow-up Yes, I just you believe that some critics have charged that your messaging around COVID-19 and children is that it's rarely transmitted in schools and that children who do contact COVID, their symptoms are very mild do you believe that that messaging has created a sort of hesitancy or lack of urgency maybe on the part of some parents and how will your program sort of address that? Yeah, I don't believe that what we're trying to do is balance the fact that schools are safe and important place for children and you know I mentioned our speak survey the first one told us that closing of schools was really hard on families across the board no matter where you lived or what income you had it was difficult for families but we've also seen the disruption that children have faced on social activities and school is not yet normal I don't need to say that to anybody who has children in the system so this is important it means that the things that we're doing are working to help get as normal as we can for children in this pandemic time but the reality is we're going to be living with this virus for some time in terms of years and right now we are still in a risky period where we're seeing children get sick and younger children who have not yet been able to be protected are getting sick and it is, as I say all the time thankfully, mostly a mild illness but it does cause severe illness in some children and we know that sometimes children bring it home and it can cause more severe illness than other members of the family so it is important across the board to get us through this nobody wants children to get sick even if the probability that they're going to have a mild illness and so this vaccine is important it's important to help reduce that anxiety but also to help children get back to more normalcy in their lives just to say finally the evidence is that people in British Columbia want to be vaccinated at very high rates and with respect to schools we have had vaccination against COVID-19 since May we have won the highest certainly in any of the jurisdictions that anywhere near us the highest level of vaccination of children 12 or children and youth 12 to 17 already which is well north of 85% in those categories so the evidence is that children youth, parents and British Columbians want to be vaccinated at very high rates and higher rates and other jurisdictions and that's because I think of the outstanding work of public health of educators of communities and of all British Columbians we have to a great extent all been in this together and overwhelmingly people in BC 90.9% of people over 12 the vast majority more than 17 out of every 20 children between 12 and 17 a high proportion of young people between 18 and 30 I think as high or higher than anywhere else in the world in those categories demonstrates the commitment of British Columbians and the work I think that's done by our public health teams around BC so the evidence is clear in all of the other groups that we've been offering immunization to and I think it will be clear in this group but we have lots of work to do and there are more questions to answer with children 5 to 11 and you have public health teams and communities going to work with everybody to make sure their questions are answered next question Richard Zussman Global News with notices going out on Monday how quickly do we anticipate the first group of British Columbia kids 5 to 11 will be immunized with the vaccine arriving in the province tomorrow why not start vaccinating kids this week in areas that are close to the distribution hub where you'll start getting the vaccine so I'll let Dr. Bellen talk to some of this but just in general this is a new vaccine it's a new formulation we want to make sure we have all the processes in place and it gives us an opportunity to look at where the registrations are look at targeting where the clinics are making sure that we have all of those things in place and it's going to be a challenge to get to some parts of the province as you know because of the weather events that we've been experiencing smaller clinics in some of the communities in the lower mainland where it's access perhaps but we really want to do this in earnest once we have people trained up on the new formulation the new vaccine and make sure we have all of those processes that make it a positive experience for families in place and so that's going to start on Monday there will be children being immunized on Monday for sure and then we'll just take off from there Richard do you have a follow up I do just have a question that Shannon was asking earlier I'm trying to understand Dr. Bowam like the time frames here like is there an estimate for how many pediatric shots the province hopes to accomplish per week it seems like a long time between now and the holidays so will there be some families that have registered now that are still waiting to get a vaccine you know by the middle of September yes so basically right now we are maximizing over the last few weeks we've been doing about 85,000 and last week 100,000 vaccinations a week and that is you know that is largely our booster campaign which as you know really picked up we started that four weeks ago and we've we're moving through that so we've been going full tilt on the booster campaign with all the complexity that you know that entailed given that we're boosting people who got their dose too sometimes before we even had the get vaccinated system we have created capacity planned capacity for the children's vaccine and it will be opening up that's part of the reason why we're waiting till Monday where we just want to you know start driving these children on through this program it is about creating those special spaces and taking our existing clinics and creating a pediatric channel and I think our sense is we're going to get all the children through in the next two months December and January and we have many pharmacies coming on board in the next three weeks that will actually help take some of the load of the booster campaign off our immunization clinics so this is what we planned and it's going to take us a little bit over the next couple of days now that the vaccine is starting to arrive in British Columbia to get ourselves organized to set up the processes but Richard we hope to focus a very significant effort on children over the coming two months and we feel we can probably complete those who are wanting to get vaccinated next question Monday and we're off to the races next question James Keller, Globe and Mail Hi there I'm not sure who wants to take this I wanted to talk about the public information campaign you say you've got 68% who say they want the vaccine right away but another 20 that clearly don't want it right away but eventually like how do you make sure that even that group who are open actually follow through and get the vaccine to get you up to the high numbers that you're looking for yes well our campaign will be multi-channel obviously using all the different you know channels that are going to reach what largely are going to be parents who are parents of children 5 to 11 are in their 30s 40s and you know they're social media aficionados so that will be a major part of our campaign but we have websites we will help people access we've got a call center we will be running some advertising there will be many components as well as community forums our medical health officers will be out in their local communities talking to the public addressing parents and also the people who will encourage the grandparents and everyone who will encourage that their grandchildren get vaccinated so it's been multi-pronged there's a lot of preparation been underway to launch this campaign I think the the other issue is if you look back minister Dix gave you the data on the 12 to 17 year olds you know we had a very very significant you know enthusiasm in the early days of that campaign May, June and into July but we have persisted since then we continue to actively vaccinate 12 to 17 year olds and I think it's one of the reasons that we are now at a level where the rates of vaccination of that cohort are some of the highest as minister Dix said in the world and it's just patience, strategy understanding once you have the group of people that really want to get vaccinated have come through how do you then turn your attention to the ones who have taken more time are still thinking it on the fence some of them actually initially intending not to get vaccinated but showing that we can bring them along and that's a really really going to be a really important part of our campaign you know beyond January where we hope to have vaccinated all the willing and the people that are enthusiastic and their children obviously and then turn our attention to those who need more help more support more encouragement, more information whatever it is that's going to get them to make that positive decision I don't know Dr Henry if you want to add anything James do you have a follow up? Yeah just a very quick one about those survey numbers I think earlier I had heard almost 80% are willing to get vaccinated but I think just now 68% plus 20 so the number really like you're thinking potentially almost 90% of parents are going to get their kids vaccinated or at least that's what they told the survey is they just want to dump through the numbers Yeah I think it's close to 60% say they're ready right now they're going to get vaccinated another 20% said they're going to consider it they need a little more time a little more information a bit more support and then about 20% who are actually not sure at all that they want their children vaccinated I think that's the breakdown I actually gave Dr Henry the wrong number in the technical briefing 18% and then the rest of them are still wanting not there yet Yes sorry Minister Just one thing because it's good surveys are one thing but these are individual decisions to get vaccinated and if you look at the 12 to 17 category by single year cohorts you'll see that at 17 it's 91% 90% and at 12 it's about 77% right now still growing still going up that tells us for 12 year olds which is probably a better an excellent way in the real world of determining where 11 and 10 and 9 year olds will be right now at 77% right now and growing and we expect that number to go higher and higher as we continue to do that work and so we have our ability to reach people and continue to do that and our efforts haven't stopped we immunized thousands of people for the first time last week and that demonstrates our persistence and our collective persistence in BC of dealing with COVID-19 We'll bring you back I will also just add that we've been working especially in this age group our pediatric colleagues who are trusted resources for families and family physicians across the province as well and they are really important so it is a place that families can go to get more information about this vaccine and part of our job and my job is to make sure that pediatricians and family doctors have the information they need to support families in making this decision as well I know you mentioned it a bit but I know there's a lot of parents who don't know so I'm just wondering Dr. Henry can you give a bit more details on if someone has an 11-year-old that's turning 12 right away I know some are thinking well maybe I should just wait for them to get their adult shot in January so can you just talk through a little bit what those parents need to think of Yeah so you know it is this transition so we have changed so what we have been doing all along is going by year cohort it just makes it easier that the first of this year was eligible for the vaccine that's been available and so if somebody turns 12 in January should they get this new formulation or should they wait until January so the short answer is get vaccinated with what's available for you first so that's a message I've said all along it stays the same for this so if you're 11 right now you can sign up and get your vaccine right now and then when you're due for your second dose if you turn 12 in the interim you can get the adult formulation or the 30mm microgram formulation for your second dose but I think Nassie has sort of gone through the combinations and permutations so if you're 11 and you've already got the adult dose that's just fine you'll get a second one of those for your dose too if you get a pediatric formulation and you get a pediatric formulation for your dose too that's just fine as well none of these need to be repeated they're all valid doses so your individual immunizer will work through that with you but the short answer is don't wait I mean the data we presented today show that it is still children in that age group who are trying to get back to their lives and going to school and are at risk of getting infected with this virus right now and as we're going into the holiday period and wanting to spend time with family and loved ones get vaccinated as soon as it's available to you Lisa do you have a follow up and again I know Dr. Bala touched on this a bit but regarding the timing of when they're starting and I know it's only a few days so I'm wondering why not use this weekend Saskatchewan starting at their shop today Ontario started Thursday are you wondering why with our registration system why it couldn't be turned around faster at least to like book a shop for Monday to know that you can go in at 8 o'clock why it can't be done before starting on Monday well we are in different logistical situations than many of our colleagues across the country we were on our call this morning and it's going to be slightly different in every province about timing and it has to do with where the clinics are and how we get the vaccine to the clinics but rest assured early Monday there will be children being vaccinated the invites will be going out on Sunday for people so that they can it just gives us time as I said to get organized to make sure that people immunizers are comfortable with the new product that we have the right streams in place to make sure that we have the clinic set up for the pediatric vaccine formulation that we get everything in order to be able to do it efficiently one other thing as they say I propose nothing but just to note on the Johnson & Johnson the Janssen vaccine we have been providing that vaccine to healthcare workers who are subject to public health orders and about 200 I believe Janssen vaccines have been administered which is really good news when you think of the numbers of health workers or relatively low numbers of health workers who are unvaccinated that's real progress that once we go through the health worker process that we have I think about a thousand people who are not received their first dose of vaccination over 12 of course who are not received their first dose of vaccination for COVID-19 who have made requests for Janssen I want you to know that that will open up and we will be able to start booking appointments so if people are interested out there in the community in Janssen we receive 5000 doses of it and maybe that we can receive more then they can contact us at the 1-833-838-2323 number so that's for the Janssen vaccine but it's worked well for a group of healthcare workers and now we're going to obviously start to make it available to everybody starting Friday or early next week so stay tuned for that if you've told us you'd like Janssen and if you're interested in receiving that vaccine then you can contact that number and put yourself on the list for that we have time for one more question we go to Bellpuree CBC thanks Dr Henry if you were looking at 80-90% of children being vaccinated in BC how much of a difference will it make in the province's fight to end the pandemic here you know that's one of the things that is really challenging for us to actually quantify I know there's been some modelling that shows it makes a difference so I think there's two reasons why we really want to strive to protect children one is for their own individual protection and we've said all along and the data has shown that most children don't have severe illness but they can pass it on and some children even healthy young children end up in hospital end up having more severe illness so we want to protect them from that this virus is going to be with us for some time so the more of us who are protected from having severe illness for longer periods of time that's going to help us get through this pandemic so yes it is important and of course we know that there's going on for younger children even so that we have the option of protecting or the opportunity to protect all of our population but it is something that is going to make a difference it's not going to be the only thing but that is the largest group of unvaccinated people in our community right now so it will make a difference in terms of transmission rates in the community it'll make a huge difference in terms of disruption of life and school and activities for younger young people Do you have a follow up Belle? I do and after Dr Henry answers if Minister Dix could give us answers in French that would be great please so my other question Dr Henry it's for a colleague a little bit off topic what's the latest advice about plexiglass barriers in businesses do they really help or should they be tossed out? No they do actually make a difference I think there's multi-different layers of protection that makes a difference some of them are wearing masks and this is going to be important for us I've stressed this over the last couple of weeks getting through this winter is going to be our challenge and we have to be patient with each other and we have to continue to do those things that may be annoying but make a difference and that means barriers means layers of protection one of those layers is mask wearing it to protect you and you wearing it to protect me and the fact that we now have some evidence that masks protect ourselves as well so barriers are important in certain situations and I think about fast food restaurants and coffee shops where that barrier does protect you from the person on the other side of it when you're at the till for example where we have to be careful and where some of the concern has come up about ventilation and if barriers are causing problems with ventilation and I'll think of one example where we looked at this in some detail you may recall last fall and winter we had a lot of challenges with transmission in food processing plants the way they're set up and the way the workers work and the challenges with wearing PPE in those situations and so we worried about whether that place had actually interfered with ventilation so we did assessments and WorkSafeBC was part of that and it really does show that appropriately placed barriers do make a difference in and of themselves they're not everything but absolutely they make a difference in check out places stores where it does help stop those droplets from going back and forth well and included with ventilation really important in terms of dispersing virus so that you don't have that risk Thank you very much I think the barriers of Plexiglas are not the only answer but it's part of a response to protect people from COVID-19 transmission and of course we talked about months or even years and I think it remains true that these barriers are effective and give a sense of security to many people many people who work with the general public whether it's in the emergency or elsewhere so we continue to recommend these barriers but it's not the only way and we must of course be vaccinated and take all necessary measures supported by public health to protect ourselves and others so it remains the case and I think it will remain the case for months to come Thank you very much