 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. This is our COVID-19 briefing for Monday, June the 15th for British Columbia. I acknowledge we're on the territories of the Lekwungen speaking people, the Songhees and the Esquimalt First Nations. Tomorrow there will be a COVID-19 briefing. It'll be from the Vancouver Cabinet offices tomorrow at 3 o'clock. On Wednesday there'll be a written statement with case numbers and other pertinent information and on Thursday there will be another live briefing again at the Vancouver Cabinet offices. And with that it's my honor to introduce Dr. Bonnie Henry. Thank you and good afternoon. So for today we are reporting on three periods of our COVID-19 cases. So from Friday to Saturday we had 14 people who tested positive for COVID-19 in the province. Saturday to Sunday we had an additional 16 people test positive and from Sunday to today an additional six cases. So that brings our total to 36 new cases and our overall total to 2,745 people with COVID-19 in British Columbia. And that includes 934 people in the Vancouver Coastal Health Region, 1,420 in the Fraser Health Region, 130 people in Vancouver Island Health Region, 195 people in the Interior Health Region, and 65 people in Northern Health. We have no new health care outbreaks to report over the weekend, although on a positive note the South Granville Park Lodge outbreak at long-term care home has been declared over as of today. So that leaves us with four active outbreaks in our health care system, all of them in long-term care, and we've had an increase of 9 resident cases and an increase of 10 cases giving us 353 residents and 220 staff who have been affected in our health care system. We have no additional community outbreaks either, and the Curl Lake outbreak in Alberta has been officially declared over. We were notified by Alberta Health this morning that they've had no new cases for two incubation periods, so that's good news. We'll continue to monitor with them, and we continue to monitor and support in the other community facilities that have had outbreaks here in BC. So that leaves us with 182 active cases of whom 13 are in hospital and four people are in critical care or ICU. Additionally, we've had no new deaths over the past four days since Friday, so also very good news. And we now have 2,395 people who have fully recovered here in British Columbia. So in many parts of our province, where we have not had new cases in some time, it may feel almost like back to normal. And I know many people have connected with friends they haven't seen for a while, are getting back to work and school and making plans for the summer. And next week the BC lunch will be back in session. It is easy sometimes when we are in this place that we're in to lose sight of the fact that this pandemic is far from over. There continues to be no effective treatment, and the virus will continue in our communities for many months to come. Part of the reason that we have so few cases in the province is because we have been doing our part to ensure that we're taking those measures to keep this virus from spreading quickly. We have put an immense effort into staying safe across the province. And despite this, we know that several thousands of people have experienced illness, including some severe illness, and many families have lost loved ones. As we look ahead, our objective is to keep the cases low, to minimize the impact on our communities so that we can start getting back to other parts of our life. We also need very actively to contain any clusters rapidly, and that's the work of us in public health, making sure that every person has followed up on, that we track every person they've been in contact with, that we find people early, and part of that is making sure that anybody who has symptoms that could be COVID-19 needs to be tested, attested rapidly. To do this, we are opening what is safe to open, and we've been talking about that over the last few weeks, and keeping close those things that we know lead to rapid spread and sometimes very dramatic outbreaks. We are slowly easing restrictions that are safe to lessen, and keeping measures in place to contain further spread. We know as more of us go to work, go to school, gather, the risk increases that someone will inadvertently bring the virus into our group, and we have seen that happen. We have seen that happen in other countries around the world, and we look at South Korea and Singapore, Washington state, many of the U.S. states that are starting to see a resurgence. We also know that it's happened here in B.C., where we've had clusters where people have gathered and somebody has inadvertently spread it to many of their close contacts and family members. We've had clusters very recently in a fast food restaurant, and we need to make sure that those measures that we know will work to prevent this transmission both from us in a social event, but also at work. So we need to continue to have our distances at work to make sure that as employees we're not gathering and having the potential for spread. We know that we've seen it in staff in places like food processing plants, and we've taken measures to up the infection control precautions in those settings. We know, of course, that we've seen it with devastating effect, and continue to see it in our long-term care homes. The recent outbreaks have been caught early for the most part, but the impact is still significant. And when left unchecked, even a small cluster can quickly surge, and it can spread those sparks in our communities, and then we do not want that spark to grow into a fire again. The tools that we have are ones that we know now, rapid testing for anyone with symptoms, so we can quickly contain every single case in the province and stop outbreaks quickly. Giving everyone the space to stay safe, whether it's at home, at work, with friends, or even in the community, always following the rules and using the layers that we have in place for safe social interactions. So number one, of course, is making sure we never go out and go around others if we're feeling unwell ourselves. We need to make sure that we wash our hands regularly, that we cover our cough, that we keep our safe distances, keep our germs to ourselves. It can sometimes be easier to navigate the path ahead when the answers are clear, and we are learning more and more about what things are clear. Some of the things that we do know is that gatherings of large numbers of people, even when distances are meant to be respected, can lead to very rapidly growing outbreaks, and often they are the people that we care about most. So no gatherings over 50 people is going to stay with us, and that only with distancing, only with ensuring that we have those fewer faces, larger spaces. Staying home if you are ill will continue to stay with us throughout this pandemic, and that means for many months to come. The hand washing that we know is so important. Those safe distances that we know are so important are going to stay with us. But we do know there are many things we can do. We can go outside, we can go for a walk, we can meet with our small bubble and have our contacts. We can go to restaurants when they have a plan to keep us all safe. And here in BC there are many activities in phase two, and as we are transitioning to phase three, that are proceed with caution. And those will become clearer as we move forward. There is a lot we can do, but we have to be careful. We can go back to work with physical distancing, with increased hand hygiene, with increased cleaning of our environments. We can see a small number of our friends making sure that we're cautious. We can travel in a limited way in BC, but then we need to follow our safe travel rules that we talked about. Small numbers, calling ahead to see what's open, bringing what you need so you don't put a burden on the community that you're going to, and of course staying home if anyone in your group is unwell. We can and must continue to protect our families, our loved ones, and our communities across the province. And to do this we need to continue to do this together, to stand together by standing apart as we move forward. And we must also, of course, continue to be kind, to be calm with each other, and to be safe. Thank you very much, Dr. Henry, and obviously today we're very pleased that no one from Friday to Saturday, or Saturday to Sunday, or Sunday to Monday has passed away from COVID-19. We know that someone had passed away in our Friday report. We want to pass on our condolences to that family, to the 168 people, their families who have passed away from COVID-19 over the previous months. It's a difficult time for us. We all know that. It's a specialty of concern for people who are in long-term care, who are dealing with the very difficult circumstances of not being able to often see their loved ones. So we want to make sure that everyone understands, in this moment of difficulty, in this moment of grief, that we are thinking very closely of all of them. Over the weekend there were 36 cases, over three days, over three periods, 14, 16, and six, as Dr. Henry has noted. And we see in hospital there are 13 people, seven in Fraser Health, five in Vancouver Coastal Health, and one in Interior Health. Currently in hospital, and that is a relatively known number compared to what we saw in April, especially. And so that is something that we're continuing to do in foreign critical care. In our hospitals we're seeing, again, a continuing increase overall in the number of people in the utilization rate to the occupancy rate of hospitals. This is a result of the many surgeries that have started over the last number of weeks, as we reported last Thursday. Just over 5,900 surgeries have taken place the previous week, which is really under these circumstances and an extraordinary success for the health care system. So I wanted to note, finally, that we see all around us the challenge that we face here in BC. And it's very, very important to remain humble and to remain vigilant. Washington State, over the last couple of weeks, has seen an increase, now plateauing, but plateauing at a higher level. Oregon continues to see significant increases. California, Nevada, Arizona, all of those states that are connected with British Columbia in some ways, there are places people from British Columbia in the past are frequently gone and have close connections to our province. Alaska has seen significant increases. And of course, Alberta yesterday saw its highest case count since May the 16th. So these circumstances are around us and it's not because people aren't striving to do well in those jurisdictions. COVID-19 is a difficult adversary. This week, we mark one month since we started our social, surgical and economic renewal, and we'll complete the second incubation period since the easing of restrictions began on May 19th this week. A heightened focus on the future can sometimes come at the expense of the actions people take in the moment. People can forget the sacrifices they made and why. And they forget the actions they must continue to take to stop the spread or prevent a resurgence. Our BC experience with the easing of restrictions has been uniquely ours. We're building our future and we are achieving it because we have not forgotten where we were or are in our BC pandemic. We have not let the easing of restrictions allow us to think we can ease up on the skills we've been taught to stop the spread and keep us safe. We have not let the easing of restrictions allow us to think that the hard work is behind us because it most certainly is not. In BC, we know that COVID-19 deserves respect. We know that COVID-19 looks for inconsistency in our effort to stop the spread. We know that COVID-19 seizes upon the most momentary weakness in our defense again to strengthen its grip. Tomorrow we'll update on the PPE supplies so essential to keeping our health care workers and patients safe. On Thursday we'll update on our transition to single site staffing so crucial to keeping residents, patients and their care providers safe. And we'll update our progress on the surgical renewal commitment so vital to getting patients the surgeries they need. Essential, crucial, vital. These words speak to the importance of each of us staying 100% all in on our BC COVID-19 response. Essential, crucial, vital. These words speak to our responsibility, all of our responsibilities to stop the spread. These words speak to our individual and collective duty to be consistent in our effort each and every moment of each and every day in Phase 2 and beyond. I'd like to say a few words in French. Today we're focusing on the number of new cases for three reference periods of 24 hours each, either those from June 12th to June 13th, those from June 14th to June 15th in midday. There are no new cases linked to COVID-19 during these three reference periods. For a total of 168 deaths in the British Columbia. We continue to offer our condolences to all those who have lost their loved ones during this pandemic. Today, 2,385 people whose COVID-19 tests were positive are now back on track. For the first reference period, which is until June 13th, we have had 14 new cases. For the second reference period, which is until June 14th, we have had 16 new cases. During the last 24 hours, 6 new cases have been added. This represents 36 new cases after our last update on Friday for a total of 2,745 cases in the British Columbia. For a total of 4 confirmed cases for COVID-19, 13 people are now hospitalized. For the fifth, four are in intensive care. The other people in the test were positive during the isolation period. So, thank you very much. Thank you very much for taking the time to ask your questions. As a reminder to everybody on the phone, please press star-1 to enter the queue. Please unmute your phones, you will not be audible until I call your name. First question today is from Richard Zisman, Global News. Thank you for taking my question. Minister Dix mentioned we're a number of weeks into the incubation periods based on reopening. We're now one full period in after the opening of schools two weeks ago. Dr. Henry, have we seen any examples of COVID-19 linked to schools and how have you thought that rollout has gone? On another point you made earlier around rapid spread, we're hearing that some places typically known as nightclubs in the NIMO are reopening. Does that concern you when they're grappling with issues around things like socially distanced dancing or dancing around their tables, potentially in a bubble? Yeah, so schools, I think, you know what, we knew that it was going to be a challenging thing, but the schools have gone really well. I've been really pleased with the reports I've heard. It's not been perfect by any means and we're figuring it out. But I've had lots of really cool notes from happy children who've gone back and at least been able to see their friends. And I think the measured way that we've done it so has made it easier for everybody to learn how to adapt. And we've learned that as we did with the restaurants orders and guidelines we had in place that some things are just not workable and you need to find a better way to do them. So I think it's been really helpful for that. And it takes that sort of fear sense away, both for the staff, the educators and the children, that a school environment can be safe. And we have had no cases associated with schools yet in the province. It could happen, but so far everything has been really great that way. It's going well. And I think we're learning some really important things that will help us prepare through the summer and into the fall. And that's a very important thing as well. And I am actually extremely proud of all of the educators and the staff in the school system. There are children who absolutely need it to be back in that in-classroom learning environment. And this has been incredibly important for them. So that's where we are with the schools right now. And I think it's going as well as it could be expected. In terms of nightclubs, yeah. So nightclubs themselves are not open. They are still closed. But some have been looking at repurposing to meet the guidance that we have for restaurants and events. So it would have to be small numbers, certainly maximum 50, depending on the size of the space with physical distancing and with all the barriers and important things that need to be in place. And I know their WorkSafeVC is working through some of the guidance. And that was some of the clarifications that were in the orders for restaurants that we put out last week. So it is going to be challenging because we know there are some things like dance floors that are not going to happen right now, as well as we know that singing and singing in a group can be a very dangerous thing for this virus. And we've seen that in a number of places around the world, including recent examples in the states to the south of us where singing groups in churches, even with physical distancing, have led to transmission of cases and singing in other situations as well. So those are all things that we'll need to work through. And I know WorkSafe is working with the industry to come up with some reasonable guidance for that. Next question is from Ethan Sawyer, CBC. Hi, there. My question is relating to the outbreak at Holy Family Facility in Vancouver. Given all the controls around long-term care facilities in BC, how do you think these outbreaks keep happening? Has Holy Family completed its single site staffing plan? And can you confirm that this outbreak happened in a dementia wing? I'm not aware that it's in a dementia wing, but I'm not entirely sure on that. As far as I'm aware, they have completed their single site. But this is the challenge with this virus, that we learn from it every time one of these things happens. We have done the best to reduce the concentration of people in long-term care homes. And that has some of the challenges that go with that. As well, we know that wearing PPEs or wearing masks when we're providing care in long-term care is an important piece. But this virus, some people can have very mild symptoms or may not recognize the symptoms that they have. And there are moments where we are off our guard, perhaps, where we can spread it. And so I know the investigation continues and that when we first have detected outbreaks in long-term care homes, sometimes we get it early enough that it's only a staff person. But unfortunately, in this case, it's become apparent that there have been a number of residents. And we know that as well as other staff who have been affected as well. Right now, the investigation continues. We're making sure that everybody is being assessed. I know that this is a long-term care and assisted living facility that are closely connected. As far as I'm aware, it's only the long-term care part that's affected at the moment. This really tells us that the challenges are that we know that it's staff that are in and out of the facilities right now. Our concern, of course, is if we have more people coming into the facility, our ability to detect and care for people goes down. And so it's a very challenging time. And this outbreak reminds us of how quickly it can spread in that environment, even with reduced people, with the measures that we know are in place. Next question is from Vaughan Palmer, Vancouver Sun. Good afternoon, Dr. Henry. Thanks for taking the question. Could we hear your assessment of this controversy that's emerged in the United Kingdom over the study in the Lancet where some people have interpreted it to mean that one meter separation might be good enough. You might not have to stick to two meters on physical distancing. Where do you stand on that issue, please? Yeah. This is something that we've parsed out for many years. This is not a new discussion. When we talk about droplet spread, in general, we're talking about somewhere around one to two meters. So we have always, well, for this virus, because we know that there's very limited things we can do once somebody has been exposed. There's no treatment. There's no vaccine. We tend to be more on the cautious side. So technically, we say droplet spread is within a meter. But we have, and I think the consensus in most of my colleagues around the world for these types of settings is to say, two meters is what we need to do, particularly in health care settings. So two meters is safe. We know that it works. There's lots of, not lots, but there is now increasing evidence that those physical distancing measures that we have put in place in many places around the world have saved tens of thousands of lives. So what we're looking at and what the UK, the Lancet article was trying to say is in those places that you're probably still at lower risk if you're at least a meter. But they also say that you need another layer of protection if you're within that period, within that space as well. And that's where wearing cloth masks or non-medical masks when you need to be within the meter or within the one to two meter range needs to be layered on. So I think that's a way of helping to make things a bit more reasonable in some situations, for example, on transit where we know that adding that extra layer of wearing a non-medical mask can facilitate and keep you safer. But I think our way of approaching this and the way that most of the countries around the world is is that safest is at least two meters. Where we're written, tie-E. Hi, Dr. Henry. Thank you for this briefing. Last month, a couple at the end of April, you said that you were looking into how to report disaggregated race-based data on who is being infected and who's dying from COVID. Just last, at the end of May, another organization joined the call for this data. Could you update us on where in the process you are and when British Columbians can expect to see the information? Yeah, so I think I mentioned this last week that we have not been collecting it systematically for cases right now, but part of the way that we're looking at it is geographically, which helps us understand a little bit, as well as the surveys that we've done and the work that we're doing on the unintended consequences, both positive and negative, have been disaggregated and will be presented using such things as race-based data, as well as geographic socioeconomic status, the other things that we know go into helping us understand who has been most differentially affected. So the survey, as you know, ended a few weeks ago now, at the end of May, and we've started to get some preliminary results. We were just talking about this on Friday, so we will be presenting that as soon as we get some results that are able to, that we can share when the analysis has been done, as you can imagine with 370 some records, it takes some time for the data to be cleaned and to be put in a place that we can get some results out of it, but that's something we've committed to do as soon as we can. Same with the unintended consequences. There are many indicators that we've now prioritized and we are going to get those out as soon as we can by as much of disaggregation as we can. So those will be coming in the coming weeks. Finder Sajan, CTV. Hi, Dr. Henry. In your remarks, you talked about transitioning to phase three and talked about traveling safely, and I just want to confirm, is that something that you're saying British Columbians can do now? And if not, do you anticipate easing some of those travel restrictions within BC this week? Yeah, so we have been looking at the numbers, as we've said, and so the second incubation period comes up very soon, and those are the transitions. So it's not going to be a full-on, full-off. It's, as we said, the dimmer switch. So yes, we will be looking at transitioning around travel, around safe travel within BC, and certainly, that's what we've been saying for this summer. We want people to experience BC, to stay home, to travel within BC, but to do it in a way that doesn't put undue burden on the place that you're going, and to make sure you take those things like calling ahead, finding out what's open, finding out being as self-sufficient as you can when you're going to some of the smaller communities, as well as ensuring the fairies, and also being very respectful of many communities who may not be ready to have a lot of guests yet, and following their advice as well. Next question is from Marcella Bernardo, News 1130. Hi, Dr. Henry and Minister Dix. Thank you for taking my question. I want to ask you today about what your response is to people that we've been talking to who are following all of your public safety orders, but they're watching others flagrantly violating them by gathering in large crowds to demonstrate, and they're concerned that no longer this virus is spreading, the harder it's going to be for them to stay in business, as well as reports of American tourists cheating their way into BC, pretending that they're here on their way to Alaska, but they're actually just vacationing. Yeah, you know, I think from the very beginning, our approach has been that we need to be tolerant, we need to be kind, we need to understand that we don't necessarily know everybody's story. I have come out, as you know, with recommendations around demonstrations, it's very important that we put our voices out there for things like anti-racism and have our voices heard because it is an incredibly important issue, even in the middle of a pandemic, but there's ways to do that safely. We have seen people who have been very effective at doing that in a safe way, and that is what I encourage. Small numbers, you can be very impactful with many small numbers. You can keep your distance, you can wear masks. So those are things that we have to find that balance. When it comes to people cheating, if you will, we know that those are border issues and that there are penalties for doing that. Those are things that people need to be aware of, and I know Minister Dix can talk to that as well, but I think we need to be cautious about the stories that we hear because we may not always know the full story. Well, just to say at the border of Marcella, I think we can look at it pretty much at the Canada-U.S. border. If people are misleading people at the border, then there can very likely be consequences for that, and I would advise anyone even contemplating such a thing to give their head a shake and not do it because it doesn't make sense, and they put at risk in some respects their ability to visit our country in the future. So that's a federal government issue, but there may be a few people, as you say, cheating in that way, but I suspect not many, and if they do so, they perhaps don't fully understand the risks they take in misleading people about that information as they cross the international border. With respect to following the rules, I think what I say to people is, first of all, there are enormous opportunities, I think, to express our opinion in the democracy. There's very large online meetings that take place every day now. Many of us are part of those, an opportunity to influence discussion and debate is significant, so we have to try and find alternate means and to understand that from a value point of view that many people are not able right now, for example, to go to memorial services and celebrations of life and funerals right now because of the limits and the size of crowds, and that is a loss because all of us would say that comforting and being part of that experience is important and yet people aren't doing it right now, and that's true of many other social gatherings of importance to people, so I really would advise people to consider that and to consider, as we have consistently said, the fact that it is those that are most vulnerable in terms of their health that are most vulnerable to COVID-19 and its consequences, and the people that you're most likely to affect negatively are people in those circumstances that you know and that you love and that it's very important that we keep that in context. We are, physical distancing saves lives and we're gonna have to continue to do it for days and weeks and months to come, which means we're going to have to adjust to that, continue to participate in our society and our economy and all the things we need to participate in while following those rules because they're in our interest to do so and because those that we will affect negatively are the ones that we care about the most. Jane Seid, North Shore News. Hi, Dr. Henry. I have a question that touches on the long-term care and also a little bit about the border issues. I think that you have sort of hinted on a couple of occasions that it was likely the Washington state strain of the virus that first made it into the long-term care homes, including the ones on the North Shore. So one of my questions is I'm curious if you can tell us anything at this point a couple of months after that happened, how that came to be, whether it was a healthcare worker who was on vacation or who had had contact with a family member or a gathering, I'm just curious to know how that actually happened. And on a similar vein, there are a lot of restrictions on visitors and yet it seems to be that it's staff members who are bringing this into the care homes because nobody else is really going in or out at this point. And so I'm curious about what kind of monitoring of the healthcare workers is happening going forward and do you count on self-reporting or what happens if somebody says they're fine but they don't care to be fine, just hoping for a little bit more clarity on that. Yeah, so we know that this virus is passed between people and yes, there was healthcare workers who went to Washington state. There was also people who got it from family members who traveled back and forth. There was people from Washington state who came here and passed it on to people. We were at a period of time. So it's very hard to know exactly how it was transmitted in each specific case and who the index case might have been at that very early phase. But yes, most of the outbreaks in long-term care have been from healthcare workers bringing it into the facility. And that speaks to the fact that as you mentioned, they are the only ones in the facility at the moment. And we do not know how many outbreaks might have been averted because others were not coming in and out of the facility as they did prior to us having these outbreak responses. So it is very challenging to know. We can't prove what didn't happen. But that is one of the considerations that we have. We know the community in a long-term care home is very vulnerable to this type of this virus and that it's very challenging when you have people coming in and out and when you have many other people, even though I may be there for my loved one, the person in the room next door, their family member wants to come in for their loved one and we dramatically increase the number of people who are coming in and out of the facility. And when you have community transmission, that risk goes up quite a lot for that individual facility. So finding that balance of how to keep everybody in that community safe is very challenging. And we've been finding it increasingly challenging as we learn more about how this virus can be spread from people who have minimal symptoms who may not recognize it in themselves. So yes, the orders that we have across the province are to have active screening, which means people have to go through a screening process when they come into the facility every day. It is done a little bit differently in different facilities, but those are the things that every time we have an outbreak, we learn a bit more about, but it should be somebody asking the question of the people individually. And there is a process, there should be a process in every facility for if somebody's not feeling well, who excludes them from work that day. We also know that it's very challenging because we know that in many situations and many of the outbreaks that I've talked about, we bring it in to our people that we're closest with, people that we spend the most time with, and most often that's our family and our loved ones, and nobody intends to do that. And it's a measure of how this virus can be spread. And once it's into a facility or a family or a group, it can be spread very rapidly before we can get an understanding of what's going on. And we call it the force of infection. And so in some settings, if we don't catch it early enough, if enough people are shedding virus, that's where things like touching surfaces and not cleaning your hands become really important because the more virus that's in that environment. And we've seen that in places around the world where it seems like it's spreading just widely through the air when really if there's quite a few people in a particularly enclosed environment who have even mild symptoms, the amount of virus in the environment becomes greater, and that means it's easier for us to pick it up and to transfer it to each other. We also know in healthcare that wearing a PPE, which is the last resort, we try and do other things to protect people, but putting it on and taking it off are times when we can self-contaminate or we can contaminate others inadvertently. So those are all scenarios. We also know that in many settings, and I talked about this a little bit, in our workplace settings, whether it's a healthcare setting, whether it's a restaurant or a grocery store, we sometimes let our guard down when we're talking with each other, when healthcare workers get together, or when the people in the grocery store that your employees get together before on break time or at lunch time or carpool together to work. And we've seen those being settings where we can transfer this virus between each other inadvertently. So there's no simple answer to it, and it's what we've been learning is that the transmissibility and the capriciousness of this virus makes it very challenging for us, particularly in some of these communal settings where we have closer contact with people. Next question is from Lisa Kordasko, CHLY. Thank you, good afternoon, Dr. Henry. Immediate family members are now being allowed to cross from Washington State to D.C. to the shared families. And of course, they're required to quarantine for 14 days when they do come into D.C. But for quite a while now, people from both sides of the border have been connecting in Peace Arts Park for the day, and there's no quarantine required of them. And some people are wondering, you know, a person from D.C. could easily be infected or infect others in that situation and bring it into their communities. And so, I'm wondering if you could kind of square that circle one. Yeah, so we've talked about this before as well. You know, it depends, of course, if that is your circle and that person is the one person that you're having contact with that you need to be cautious, of course, that you don't, preferably you do it with distancing. But yes, we're not having somebody come into our environment for extended period of time. And so anybody who is in that environment who is meeting with somebody needs to be very cautious about their own symptoms and needs to check and make sure every day that they are feeling well before they go into the environment. So it would be the same if somebody came across and was in quarantine. As a contact of a contact, somebody in quarantine, I would just still need to monitor myself carefully for symptoms, but I was not in quarantine myself. So it's not like everybody in the whole household needs to be in quarantine if somebody comes to visit. Keith Baldry, Global News. Thank you, Dr. Harry, Minister Dixford, taking my question. There's an Angus Reed poll out today that suggests while a majority of Canadians are still following public health guidelines, the number of them doing that is dropped from similar polls back in April. How concerned are you that people may be becoming complacent because, well, as you point out, COVID-19 is raging around the world and across the border. It's not at the same numbers in Canada as there are a sense of complacency setting in. And also, just in Bender's question earlier, are we gonna get to phase three this week because this is one of the two incubation periods are up, I believe, on by Tuesday? I'll answer the second one, maybe. We're continuing to watch, looking at the numbers, but it's not a, yes, we're in phase three. It's a gradual increasing of the things that we're doing. So I think I've said at the very beginning that the whole phase thing is more of a dimmer switch. So it's not a hard and fast and now we can, so I don't wanna give people the impression that what we're saying is if we go to phase three, that suddenly we don't have to do the same things that we need to do. And that speaks to the concern about complacency. Saying that we're in phase three does not mean that we have license to stop our physical distancing. It doesn't mean that we're stopping our hand washing and covering our cough and staying home with real. It does not mean in any way, and I said this a number of times, that gatherings can increase and that more people. What it does mean is that we are working on the guidance with more slowly, thoughtfully, more businesses being able to open. We've been through this in a transition so that not everything is happening at once. And now we are approaching the place where I believe we will be moving into the transition where we can start planning our summer vacations here in DC. But again, doing it within the bounds of the gatherings restrictions, within the bounds of making sure we have our physical distancing, doing it in a way that protects the communities that we're going to visit. Next question is from Laura Brom, C-Fex. Hi, so last week there were some care homes that had announced they were allowing visits with the residents to resume. And then I know one home in Victoria had announced that and then stepped it back saying, oh, actually we can't under the rules. So I was wondering if you have a message for any care homes that are looking at allowing visits when the restrictions haven't lifted yet. Yeah, so I think there was some confusion and it's challenging. We had put in increased language and definitions of what essential visitors were. So those were in place from the beginning, but the interpretation in different places and different homes in particular, some healthcare facilities was slightly different. So it's trying to get everybody to the same approach. And we are, as I mentioned, working with the sector on making sure that when the time is right that everybody has the guidance they need to have visits resume in a safe way. I think the challenge we face and I've been saying that a few times today is as we open up society more and we see more businesses and schools and other things open, we do run the risk and we have seen this of increasing transmission and we need to be really on top of it. And so we have to accept that if the more people that we allow into long-term care homes the risk again goes up that somebody will inadvertently introduce the virus into that care setting. So we're all struggling with that, both the owners and operators, the healthcare workers, families and residents themselves, many of whom send me notes, which is really heartening. And I have to say I'm incredibly heartened by the resiliency of our seniors and elders. But it is the most challenging question that we have because it's a balancing of quality of life all around and it's not a simple question. So we... Just to add very briefly to that, that all of these questions, and it's true in acute care as well as long-term care where we would, I think many of us would normally visit a loved one who's staying overnight in the hospital. It's why it's so important for everyone to reflect whatever phase we're in of the need to maintain physical distancing, of the need to stopping the spread because issues such as this one, the difficult things that we're working through to at some point allow visits, depend on our collective willingness to continue to act, to continue to physically distance, to continue to wash our hands, to continue to do all the things that Dr. Henry has advised. So this is critically important. We have to think about the people most at risk and the people who most need social support and interaction. And when we act to physically distance, when we act to wash our hands, when we act to follow the rules, we're making all of that more possible and when we don't, we are making it less possible. So during this time when we're seeing an opening up, it is even more important to follow the rules that exist. We have time for one more question this afternoon. For any reporters that didn't get to ask a question, there will be a statement released later today. For recommendations on protecting families and communities from COVID-19, visit bcdc.ca. For non-medical questions about the province's COVID-19 response, visit gov.bc.ca forward slash COVID-19. And for a full listing of the provincial health officers orders, visit gov.bc.ca forward slash PHO guidance. Last question is from Dan Barrett, CBC. Dr. Henry, we are hearing about a South Asian wedding that may be at the center of another outbreak. Lots of videos going around, social media showing people dancing close together. Wonder if you can share any information on that and that if weddings in events of up to 50 people, no more, as you said, are going forward beyond the hand washing and wearing masks, et cetera, what other specific things do people need to do? Individual meal portions, no dancing, separate drinks for everybody, like no sharing of containers, et cetera. And if the minister can respond off, I'll say, Messy. Sure. I can't speak to that specific incident you're talking about or a party you're talking about because I'm not aware of that. But I will say that, yeah, we know that, and this is actually spent much of my weekend looking at some of this, is where do we get transmission around the world? Where are the settings that are most at risk? And what are the things that we can do to try and prevent those from seeding our community in an ongoing way? And we know that there are unfortunately things that we really enjoy, things like choirs and religious services and funerals and celebrations like weddings and all those important birthday celebrations. There are also places like nightclubs where people are getting together in enclosed environments. So we know some things are riskier than others. We know it's riskier when you're indoors and in a closed space with poor ventilation with lots of people. So what we're trying to find is a way to allow us to have these important life celebrations in a way that's not going to put those we love the most at risk or even the ones we're closest to. So those are the balance that we have to find. And we're using 50. We've been consistent from the beginning that it's maximum of 50. And that's a number that we know if somebody inadvertently brings it into that number of people, we can probably find them relatively quickly. We can help control it and stop the spread. And it's not going to take off exponentially. We're not going to get hundreds of people. So yes, there's things that you can do if you're planning an event. You want to make sure that you have the ability to have physical space between people so that family units can be together but you have the ability to separate out from others. You want to make it really easy for people who are more likely to have severe illness to get very sick or to die from this to attend in a virtual way so that you're not putting them at risk by being around a lot of other people. You want to make sure that, yeah, if you're doing dancing, you need to do it with your own small group and then have small groups that are physically separated so that you can enjoy this. And outdoors is better than indoors. Big spaces give you more leeway than smaller spaces. We're becoming increasingly aware that things like singing are challenging because somebody who has a very mild case or maybe just before they become symptomatic if they can expel a lot of droplets with singing and there's no way that indoors, you can have a choir practice that would allow enough distance that would not put people at risk. And we've seen many situations where that has arisen, including very recently in Oregon with a church service. So those are things that are important. There is guidance around this, but as you say, no buffets because we know that's a place that we can mix and mingle virus. No, so single servings for people doing it in a way that allows people to maintain that safe distance, both the staff, if they're staff who are working on an event and the people who are participating or attending as well. So these are all the things that we're going to have to work out with each other over the coming months, but this is going to be in place for us, at least for the foreseeable future until we have a really good treatment that works for people, or until we have a vaccine, or until the virus mutates and doesn't cause this anymore. But I don't think that's as likely. It's a response, it's a defeat. But it's just for the, I think to say in English, it's really important to understand it's not a limit of 50 people or physical distancing. It's a limit of 50 people and physical distancing. I think in French, it means that we have to follow the advice of Dr. Henry, of others in the public health system. It's not a punishment, it's a necessity for people to be able to follow our lives in the new normal of society when we talk about the celebrations that are a celebration of a birthday, a celebration of a trip, whatever it is, you have to follow the rules. It would be, I think, disastrous to have an event that must be a celebration and to see the progress of COVID-19 in a family or in a group of friends. It would be disastrous to have a wedding or an event where someone who is close and loved falls ill and goes to the hospital. You have to follow the rules because that's the best way to continue in a context where you have a virus without a vaccine. And it's not a punishment, it's an opportunity. These rules finally open the way for participation in society. But it's necessary to follow them, to follow them every time, to limit events to 50% of course, but also to follow other rules that will make us healthy and that will protect us and above all, those who love us. Thank you very much, thank you very much. We'll see you tomorrow.