 Good afternoon. I'm Adrian Dix, BC Minister of Health. Beside me is Dr. Bonnie Henry, the Provincial Health Officer for British Columbia. I want to thank members of the media for their cooperation today and ensuring appropriate distancing here at the media conference, at the media event. We'll be briefing here tomorrow at the Vancouver Covenant Offices at 3 o'clock and on Friday and with that I'd like to introduce Dr. Bonnie Henry for today's report on COVID-19. Thank you. Good afternoon. So these are extraordinary times as we know and there's been many changes even overnight in the status of both around the world and here in British Columbia. So today we have 45 new cases to report so that brings our total of cases that have been tested positive here in British Columbia to 231. That includes 144 in Vancouver Coastal Health, 58 in the Fraser Health Region, 16 on Vancouver Island, nine in the Interior Health Region and four in Northern Health. Including one is a resident of a new long-term care home, the Harold Park Centre in Vancouver Coastal Health. We now have 13 people who are hospitalized, seven of whom are in intensive care here in British Columbia, five continue to be recovered and we have no new deaths to report. So as I said these are extraordinary times and we took a number of extraordinary measures in the last few days to try and do everything that we can to try and stop the transmission of this virus in our communities and flatten out the curve over the next 7 to 10 days is the critical time. It's sometimes challenging to see what it is today when we seem like everything's fine but we do know that this virus is spreading in our community and the measures that we are requiring and asking of people are to try and prevent as much of that spread as we can and slow it down as much as we can and protect those people who are most likely to have severe illness from this disease particularly our seniors and elders, people with compromised immune systems, people with underlying illnesses. So as you know we issued some orders under the Public Health Act in the last in the last couple of days around schools, around pubs, bars and nightclubs and restrictions in restaurants, around travel and on mass gatherings in the community. These are temporary but they are extremely important right now. Yesterday I talked a bit about you know we're dealing today with things that happened 10 days 14 days ago and what we do today is going to help us in the next 10 days 14 days two weeks or three weeks and it's incredibly important that people start paying attention and use these measures now to mitigate what is happening in our communities now. Having said that orders so legal orders are really a measure of last resort and mostly we're asking people to take voluntary steps to help us in our community and while they are voluntary there is an expectation that we will do our civic duty to do our best around this to proactively protect our communities and our families and our communities. So just to make clear what some of this is and I know there's been a lot of questions about what exactly these mean in different settings. So around businesses the orders that we have really are about making sure that we have those appropriate measures in place so that essential businesses keep going. We don't lose the essential services that we need in our communities everything from the lights and and wi-fi for sure things like our transportation our public transportation networks our essential goods and people movement around our province in our country and internationally. So for businesses for example grocery stores or pharmacies it'll vary by the business how you will need to implement these measures so that may meet that will mean enhanced cleaning both in your premise but also for people who employees of the premise so they can clean their hands frequently they can clean the surfaces around them and they're able to have a clean enhanced cleaning in all parts of the of the business but it can be tailored to your business. So for some people the social distancing requirements making sure that there's at least one to two meters around people in your business if you're a grocery store there's a very large one that may mean that you can accommodate several hundred people without them having to come in close contact with each other if it's a very small business it may have to be one at a time or or very few people so those are things that can be determined by your own business given your own circumstances. We also have been asked a lot of questions about other sites like industrial sites and again these are these are less risky environments for many parts even though you may have a lot of people there so employers should be looking at reducing the numbers on a site if possible making sure that employees are not congregating in areas where they're spending a lot of time together for example at lunches and breaks that they have opportunities when they're in in closed spaces to separate from each other and you can have staggered schedules for example but for most industrial sites this is not a difficult accommodation and it's something that employers should pay attention to. In terms of public transportation this is an essential service for many people for getting back and forth to work for healthcare workers for other essential services workers but there are things we can do in our transportation systems that will help us to minimize the distance of the contact between people and help prevent transmission so things like minimizing the number of people on cars or regulating the number of people in a in a bus so that they can sit separate from each other putting barriers in place for employees like bus drivers many of the buses now have some barriers so that people aren't able to breathe directly making sure you've enhanced cleaning in those facilities and on those services and that the employers employees of the of the of the transportation services are able to clean their hands regularly and clean their space around them so one of the other issues that we've been working on over the last little while is about child care services and child care services and daycares must be provided in a safe manner for those families where parents work in our essential services sector and we have not recommended blanket closing of child care services because they are essential services for our parents that work in our essential services as well however as we implement these broad social measures to delay transmission of COVID-19 many parents now are working from home and caring for their children at home and that is really important because that does take the pressure off our day care centers and ensures that there is reliable and safe child care for those who do need it so this will help our child care day care centers implement a more rigorous approach to things like hand hygiene, food handling, food services so that smaller groups of children can be in more appropriate environments in sometimes when we're looking at many different ways that that can happen using enhanced cleaning measures things like symptom checks things like reducing the the crowding together of people during drop-offs and pick-ups of children so staggering schedules making sure that staff are able to protect themselves as well so these are all measures that we'll be looking at and then reviewed and guidance will be coming in the coming days and our ministries will be providing more specific guidelines for preventing the spread of COVID-19 in child care facilities to the owners and licensing officers in the coming days to make sure that we continue to have safe and reliable access to essential child care during this very difficult time. I do want to mention a few other things one is around employers and doctor's notes and we have said this before but we'll repeat really there's no need for doctor's notes particularly in this situation that we are in and that uses up much needed health care services so we are again appealing to employers not to require doctor's notes and of course not to require testing for this for employees to return to work so this is a challenging time where we need to really think about taking care of each other taking care of our communities and our families because it will be a changing situation over the next few weeks we may see many other things that are happening and as I mentioned what we are doing now is to protect us for the next few weeks the things that we need to do today are to clean our hands regularly not touch our face and mouth covering our mouth when we cough social distancing is now a very important part of all of our communities across British Columbia and of course staying home if you are sick or if you are somebody who is at high risk for this disease and I'm calling upon all of us in our communities to support people so they don't have to go out if they're at risk or if they're in isolation for reasons that of risk for this disease I will mention as well that the Canadian blood services has indicated that we have an urgent need for blood donations here in British Columbia and that they are establishing services so that people can donate blood in a very safe way and so if you are want to donate blood and want to be able to contribute to that you can go to blood.ca and there'll be information about how you can do that so again talked about yesterday the the importance of coming together as a community right now and I will for all of you to be kind to be calm and to be safe and we will get through the next few weeks together. Thank you very much Dr Henry as Dr Henry has reported our total number of cases in British Columbia is 231 I mean with 45 identified since yesterday that represent 144 cases in the Vancouver Coastal Health Authority 58 in the Fraser Health Authority 16 in Island Health nine in Interior Health and four in the Northern Health Authority. Most of that those patients most of them are resting at home in self isolation stable and we hope of course getting better with the support of public health. We now have 13 patients in acute care we had seven yesterday and of these 237 cases I believe it's still the case that five of recovery meaning they've had two consecutive negative tests. Our testing continues there's a lot of interest in the amount of testing that's done as you know we provide precise numbers every Friday the reason for that is that we want we want our people doing the work and not reporting on the work all the time and we now have multiple locations five locations around the province that actually do the physical tests that run the test of course many many more that are that are collecting the tests around the province. We estimate that at least 17,000 people have been tested and we will have precise numbers on Friday but that gives you a sense if you think back at the amount of testing that's been done when we had our presentation I believe on February 28th we had done I think the most at that time and it was about 1,000 British Columbians have been tested at that time focusing of course on travel at the time then the following week which was approximately March 6th I think it was 2,000 and last Friday it was 6,225 the number that you're going to get receive this Friday indicates the growing intensity of testing and while our testing has become more strategic we are doing more and more of it and more and more of it is necessary. I want to underscore that whether it's those who have recovered those who have died or those who have tested positive their families loved ones friends and neighbors that those are the people that we have in our mind's eye and others who are facing the struggle who we have in our mind's eye when we can when we address these problems as a community and we should all have them and all remember people as Dr. Henry has said who are especially vulnerable in particular seniors and our elders those living in care homes and that requires specific steps but also people with chronic diseases people living with disabilities particularly adults living with disabilities in our society and many many more. I think what Dr. Henry said that is so important is that under these circumstances we have to continue to be calm continue to be safe continue to be generous with one another. I want to note a couple of other points here that are important in terms of information to you that just to give you a sense of where we are. Our our self-assessment tool which is on the BCCDC website had at the end of yesterday 7774,618 total users that number is now as I am told close to a million as of right now. I want to emphasize what Dr. Henry said with respect to the blood supply and the need for people to give blood and the information out to the public and this is one way that we can participate those of us who do not need to be staying at home at the moment in supporting one another. I note there's a in the South Asian community there's a community of people around the Sikh community that gives blood all the time that has that is making a call out to the community for more blood donations there we thank them and we need more people to join them. I wanted to note a couple other things again our new 1800 COVID-19 line the calls answered yesterday was 1807 that has relieved some of the pressure on our on our 811 line which is continuing to answer between three and four thousand calls a day. Finally a couple of things about the actions that have been taken and the actions that will be taken to address this as a community. We have asked and the provincial health officers asked and all of us have asked that everyone take part in the efforts to stop the spread of COVID-19 in British Columbia and some of the actions that have taken place if we think thought of these things a month ago or two months ago are truly breathtaking. We've asked people not to travel outside of Canada. We've asked people if they travel outside Canada and return to self-isolate for 14 days. Mass gatherings have been reduced to 50 we've seen decisions made canceling school classes and the closure of bars and restaurants the limitation of restaurants around social licensing and so on and municipalities and other levels of government have taken actions on in their own right and all of these are dramatic of course and we wouldn't have imagined taking them a month ago or two months ago but I think what I wanted to emphasize is because there's always discussion about who's following and who isn't. First of all I think an overwhelming majority of people in BC are listening to this advice because they know what it means for everyone else in their neighborhood in their community and to those who have been reluctant or who have an occasion not follow the advice I want to say that your neighbors and your friends and your families are counting on you to do just that. This next two weeks what we do in this two weeks every one of us is important. There's a difference between self-isolating a self-isolation and isolating yourself from the responsible action we all need to take together so for today today I would say for anyone who hasn't joined in this effort who has been reluctant to join in these very explicit measures we can do to help one another to help protect one another's health I say it's not too late to join the fight it's not too late to join the fight we are asking you to take part today to take your civic responsibility but your responsibility and our responsibility as human beings to one another we need you to join in and we need you to do it now today this moment without judgment but we need everyone to take part in what in I think what has been an inspiring call to action from Dr. Bonnie Henry and many others around the country so as we've understood from the beginning it's clear every day we are all in this together we are all in this together we count on each other to take the appropriate precautions to keep one another safe COVID-19 is a challenge for us all and as each day brings news of our shared battle of our shared obligation of our shared obligation to one another and of the seriousness of the fight we're we're learning what to do we're learning how to adapt and we're learning how much we mean to one another every single person watching and every single person in this room and all of the other rooms in BC if that shared experience that shared responsibility that has to continue to drive us thank you very much we look forward to taking your questions thank you minister Dix