 Good afternoon, my name is Adrian Dix, I'm BC's Minister of Health, and I'm here on the territory of the Lekwungen speaking people, the Songhees and Esquimalt First Nations, Dr Bonnie Henry, our provincial health officers in Vancouver on the territory of the Musqueam of Esquimals of the Slewa Tooth, and it's my honor to introduce Dr Bonnie Henry. Thank you very much, and good afternoon. I want to start by acknowledging today that the world is a little bit more uncertain, and for some people that can be provoking anxiety and fear, and particularly with what we are seeing in the Ukraine. And of course this is on top of what we have experienced for this past two years with the COVID pandemic and the number of climate disasters that we have been through here in BC. And I know that this weighs on us, and especially on children. And I want to remind people there is help. I want to remind people about the kids' helpline, in particular, 1-800-668-6868, or you can text 6868-6868 and reach out and talk to somebody. These are times when we need to connect with each other and support each other, and especially for our children. Having said that, we are seeing some very encouraging trends that set us in many parts of our province that have been in many parts of our province, the transmission of COVID is down, which in turn is relieving the intense pressure that we have had on our hospitals and on the broader healthcare system. At the same time, there are still many, many areas that have significant transmission, and we are still seeing widespread transmission of this virus across the province, which is why those protections we have in place right now remain a necessary part of our strategy for now. As we move into March, today being March 1st, we have committed to monitoring these, to making sure that we can make the changes that are needed based on our best data and our pandemic. And we have talked about the importance of doing this prior to spring break, and that is something we have committed to, and we will be looking at additional precautions and what we, if we are in a better place to be able to remove some of these restrictions very soon. This morning, I had the opportunity to spend some time with immunizers across BC and across parts of Western Canada and the BC Immunization Forum. And it was really an opportunity to reflect on the incredible work of so many people that have gotten us to this point in the pandemic. We have delivered over 11 million doses of vaccines in every corner of British Columbia, and people immunizers from all walks of life have been stepping up and doing a tremendous job. And I just want to express my gratitude for the heroic work that they have done across the province and continue to do to support people in making those important decisions. And I want to thank British Columbians for stepping up and getting vaccinated. Some of our newest tools are new types of vaccines, the protein subunit vaccines, Novavax, which we talked about a little bit about last week and a number of questions have come in, so I just want to talk about a number of them. The Novavax vaccine is proof for use for people 18 and above. It has not yet been tested in younger children. It is safe to mix and match. So if you have had an mRNA vaccine or viral vector vaccine as your first dose and you have had concerns or side effects from that, you can use this as a dose too. Again, so Novavax can be your second dose in the primary series and it should be at about eight weeks. It can also be used as a booster dose if you have had two doses of any other vaccine. So it is safe to mix and match. There is no need to start again. And for those people who have not yet started your course of vaccination, Novavax is a perfect opportunity for you to rethink that and get the protection that others have. So if you have had an mRNA vaccine or if you have not yet tested a Novavax, you can call 1-833-838-2323 and put yourself on the list. And I know we have close to 1,000 people at least already on that list. And as soon as it comes into the province in the next few days, we will be making arrangements for you to get your dose. In addition, last week, health Canada approved the Medicago vaccine, which is a very large, big particle that is developed in plants. And again, it provides the entire protein to your immune system. So it is different from the mRNA vaccines where you get the code for developing that protein. And it is packaged with a similar adjuvant to what we used for the H1N1 influenza vaccine. And it is a similar type of vaccine to the ones we have for HPV and hepatitis. And it is one that we are more used to. I will say that it is only a proof for use for people 18 to 64. They didn't have a number of older people in the trials. So right now, there is no reason to believe it is not effective in older people, but the data is not there. So it is for people 18 to 64 years of age. Unfortunately, though, we are not expected to receive any of this vaccine in the province or the country for the next few years. I will say vaccination is our key. It is the key that we have had for getting through this past two waves, both Delta and Omicron, it has made a tremendous difference in reducing transmission. And we see that particularly with the booster dose. And yes, the booster dose is effective at preventing you from getting infected with Omicron. We have seen that. It is 60 to 70% data from Quebec shows that it is 50% protective on preventing you from needing to go to an emergency department. And we know that it is highly protective at preventing hospitalizations or ICU care. So I am encouraging everybody who has not yet had it to get your booster dose. It will help you now and it will help you for what we will be dealing with in the future. And I will remind people that in hospital right now, thankfully, we have not yet had the vaccine, but 47% of the people in our ICUs are people who don't have that protection that vaccines have been giving us. And that comes from about 8% of the population. You are much, much more likely to get severe illness if you don't have the protection, if you don't have your immune system stimulated by vaccination to recognize this virus when you are exposed to the virus. And it seems more likely that you are going to have a more severe illness. And I know people have sent me notes about the fact that there is more people by numbers in hospital who have had vaccines. But that is because so many of us are now protected through vaccination. And some people, yes, are at most more risked. But your risk is still that much greater if you don't have that protection from the virus. And I know people who have smoked for long periods of time and not everybody develops lung cancer, but your risk of smoking and developing lung cancer is much, much higher than a non-smoker. Very similar to what we are seeing with vaccination. As has been the case throughout the pandemic, we all have a role to play. And we need to make decisions based on our personal risk and the risk of those people being able to manage to understand that risk. And as we have seen, as we have gone through this period, we have come to understand a lot more. We know that the most important tool remains protection through immunization. But we also now have more access to things like tests that help you make those decisions about your own health if you develop symptoms. Looking ahead as we expect transmission to be going on, the weather gets warmer and we get into spring, we spend more time outside, we will likely no longer need those extra layers of protection that we have had in place during this peak of transmission during the last few weeks. Of course, this is not the case for everyone. We know that some people, people who are immune compromised, people who are older, will need to continue to take a cautious approach, and this is where, again, we have to keep our eyes right for us and to respect that other people have different risks and that understanding that masking is important for people. Everybody right now, but it will continue to be important for a number of people, keeping that respectful distance, knowing that not everybody will be moving at the same pace. Keeping groups small will remain important for many people. As we are getting close to spring, we know that respiratory season tends to wane, but we know as well that it tends to increase as the winter months come again. So, we need uncertainty as we move through the summer. We hopefully will be in a good place for the next few months because of the immunity that we have and where we are to be able to relieve the pressure that some of these measures are in place. But we need to be prepared for immunity to wane again and for us to have new approaches and adapt depending on what we see come the fall. We have all experienced the impacts of this pandemic and without a doubt it has been difficult. That is why we will be removing restrictions and layers of protection as soon as we are confident we can safely make those changes and we can support everybody in doing that. We are being cautious. We have heard loud and clear that we will be moving cautiously and slowly because that is the way that we will continue to gain ground and not lose it. Each step of the way we will make the decisions based on what we are seeing, on the data that we are seeing here in our pandemic. At the same time, I am very optimistic that we are moving to a better place rapidly and we will have more to say about that very soon. I know things like graduations and many workplaces are now moving to full in-person return to work if that hasn't occurred already. We are in a transition period but we will take it slowly and sustainably as we move into the next little part. This pandemic has also shown us the importance of connection. Even virtual connection. And now more than ever we need to continue to support ourselves to make sure that we reach out and connect with those in our life right now. People we may not have connected to to build those bridges as we move into this transition phase and make sure that we continue to support each other with compassion and with love. It is important to know that the things that we do make a difference to everyone in our world, whether we are doing it for those we love and for those we don't know. It is important for us to now, with all of the uncertainty that we are facing, to reach out and connect and support each other as we have been through this storm together. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Henry. Today I am providing an update on rapid test deployment and surgical renewal. First I wanted to give a brief update on the impact of sickness on health care workers and the health care system. Health authorities continue to closely monitor sickness levels across health services, especially in hospitals, health care, and home support. I can report that from February 21 to February 27, 13,631 health care workers called in sick. That includes 3,121 in the Fraser Health Authority, 2,517 in Interior Health, 1,299 in Northern Health, 1,293 in the Provincial Health Services Authority. That includes BC Emergency Health Services, our ambulance paramedics, the emergency health service, the emergency health service, 2,137 in Vancouver Coastal Health, 2,679 in Island Health, and 585 in Providence Health Care. Just to put that in context, February 21 to 27, that's 13,631. Last week, February 14 to 20, 14,579. February 7 to 13, 15,542. January 31 to February 6, 17,117. February 7 to 13, 15,542. January 31 to February 6, 17,158. Each week, the number is lower, although it's still above what we would normally expect at this time of year, but it shows the same thing as other indicators that Dr. Henry has referred to, the fact that hospitalizations are half of what they were, less than half of what they were at the peak of the Omicron variant of concern wave. Once again, I want to express gratitude to health care workers who are doing this for their insurance and their skills today as BC care providers today, and health care workers, particularly in long-term care and assisted living and being celebrated today, I encourage everyone to find a way to celebrate those health care workers, you know, members of the Hospital Employees Union, the Health Sciences Association, the BCNU, the BCGEU, the Doctors of BC, the Union of Food, the USCW, Union of Food and Commercial Workers, and others who are significant in all those operating and running our long-term care and assisted living facilities across BC. And now an update on rapid tests as of February 28th. BC has received 24,056,910 rapid tests. We continue to prepare for the arrival of 12 million tests over the next four weeks at a rate of 3 million per week. 17,525,751 have been deployed to key strategic areas. As previously noted, just over half a million tests in our inventory are not suitable for deployment or personal use and are being used at the discretion of medical health officers in the appropriate setting, they need a health professional to do the tests. That leaves a current inventory of 5,974,000 tests suitable for self-administered use across the province. To date, 3.3 million tests have been distributed to K-12 schools across the province. 2.1 million tests have been distributed to post-secondary institutions. Already distributed 2.5 million tests have been delivered to more than 900 pharmacies with more pharmacies receiving deliveries soon. An additional 600,000 tests will be sent to pharmacies this week. As announced those week, these tests are for British Columbians age 70 and older to pick up a kit containing five tests at participating pharmacies. This age group is a priority, as we have said many times, because the pharmacies are at more risk of serious consequences if they become infected. If they become symptomatic, the tests will allow them to determine if they may have COVID-19, so that other actions can be taken as required. As of yesterday afternoon, pharmacies have delivered approximately 366,000 tests. That's more than 70,000 senior 70 and above have received their tests. For more information on accessing test kits, please contact us at BCFarmacy.ca to get the location in their community. It's important to remember that testing continues to be something that we do when we have symptoms. That hasn't changed. Increased test availability means more members of the general population will be able to access tests to use to understand their own symptoms and illness and to take actions to limit transmission to their friends, family, and work, including and especially those at higher risk. And now finally, here's our weekly surgical renewal update. Health authorities report that 6,428 surgeries were completed from January 30th to February 5th. From February 20th to February 26th, our most recent week, health authorities postponed 99 non-urgent scheduled surgeries. That's two in Fraser Health, 92 in Interior Health, one in Vancouver Coastal Health, two in Northern Health, two in the Provincial Health Services Authority. Cumulatively from September 5th, 2021 to February 26th, 2022, regional surges of COVID and the factors including severe weather patterns have caused 8,025 surgical post moments. For several weeks now, with hospitalizations due to COVID high and with a great many patients with COVID in our ICUs. We've talked about our role in bringing those numbers down. We've said our work is our work together makes the difference that matters. And here's how. This week, all health authorities, that's Fraser Health, Interior Health, Northern Health, Vancouver Coastal Health, Vancouver Island Health, and the Provincial Health Services Authority, all our health authorities began scheduling and completing post bone surgeries, all of them. We've also talked about how each moment matters as is the difference we make in it and the difference we've made to patients who wish to proceed with their post bone surgery by stopping COVID's rapid spread and easing the stress on our hospitals is just as impressive. And here's why. Because 99.8% of patients whose surgeries were postponed in the first wave have had their surgeries. Because 94.2% of patients whose surgery was postponed in ways two and three have had their surgeries. And because 49.2% of patients whose surgeries were postponed in ways four and five have now had their surgeries as well. Now, just how welcome this news is for patients across BC, for the families and friends supportive of them, their care and their well-being. And how much it says about everyone involved in delivering surgeries. And in that, it reminds us our work is not done. These achievements demonstrate again all that is possible of the progress that it's hours to make. And here's what I think we need to do now. Take care as restrictions ease as we've all been in the past. We need to take care. We need to ease into activities we haven't done for a while and make sure we're ready for the change, the demands it places on us, and the attention it requires of us. Take care of all of those who deliver our care, make our surgeries possible. Take care and support residents in long-term care and keep our hospitals doing all the remarkable things that they do. Take care of ourselves and each other, to ease the progress we've made. And with that, we're happy to take your questions. A reminder to reporters on the line, please press star one to enter the queue. You will be limited to one question and one follow-up. Our first question today comes from Lisa Kordasko, Vancouver Sun. Thank you. Good afternoon. I'm wondering as you move into this new phase, what type of surveillance systems would you put in place to accurately monitor any transmission in the future? Thank you for that. That's a really great question. I didn't talk about surveillance. We did talk about it a couple of weeks ago. But this is what we're working on with our team, particularly at the BCCDC, but we have a number of different things. We are going to be moving to a weekly report rather than the daily numbers, and hopefully that will be very soon as well. And what we will be looking at is integrating the surveillance that we're doing for COVID into our serious respiratory illness surveillance that we have all along. So there will be ongoing testing from Sentinel physicians. We've got a way of doing that that we do for influenza that will be including COVID. We're looking at expanding the wastewater testing surveillance that we're doing over time and expanding it, not just for SARS-CoV-2, but for other pathogens to help us understand what's circulating in communities around the province. We are looking at how do we use regularly, routinely collected blood for other reasons to help us understand if we're seeing an increase in seroprevalence of COVID. So these are all things that we're adapting and modifying what we're doing now as we're in this transition phase. So we'll have more details about that, but it will be looking at how do we make sure we have a way of seeing a snapshot on a periodic basis of what's happening. The other really, really important thing is we are continuing our whole genome sequencing and the sampling that we're doing and how much we send for whole genome sequencing will vary as we see transmission and amount of virus circulating in the communities decreasing over the summer, hopefully, so that we're prepared for the fall. So I think that's one of the questions that the team is working on. Please, do you have a follow-up? When we look around at other provinces who feel that they're already entering this new phase is almost a vandemic response. Is British Columbia an outlier? How long do you see this transition we're undergoing right now to last? I don't actually think we're an outlier in any way. The name is some other provinces. We're right on track. We've removed all of our capacity limits and things like that, for example, on a number of different settings. So there are a couple of fundamental pieces that we still have in place. And we've been looking, for example, for mass mandates. And we've been looking at what are the natural transition times and what amount of transmission in our community is needed as they are when we have high rates of transmission. One of the really important natural breaks that we're seeing and is looking really optimistic is spring break for K-12. And that starts on March 14th. So I think across the country we're quite aligned on having some basic things in place. Different provinces and territories have used things like their vaccine card in different ways. It is an important tool that we're seeing. And I think that's one of the most important effects and is in play here in BC still. But those are all things that are additional layers of protection that as transmission comes down, as our hospitalization comes down, and the risk in the community changes. We can shift more to individualize personal management. And all of this is aligned with having new vaccines available, the high level of immunity from people stepping forward. And we can shift extra tools like having the at-home tests that people can use to help guide their own actions over the next few months. But really it is preparing us. We are, and we've had this discussion with my colleagues across the country even this morning. We are in a transition phase. We do not yet know enough about this virus from an epidemiologic point of view for us to consider it endemic. We know the patterns that we are going to see through respiratory season. We have a pretty good idea now, but there is still a lot of this virus circulating around the globe. So there are inevitably going to be changes and surprises that we will need to adapt to. And now over to Minister Dix. Just to say that I think our approach has been founded on the advice from the provincial health office, from the BCCBC, and has been in contact with a lot of other jurisdictions, not just in Canada but around the world, the most consistent approach that has meant that for children in schools, they have had the most opportunity to be in school of all the jurisdictions because we have taken a consistent approach and have had the remarkable work of not just people in public health, but of teachers, the support of parents and the children themselves. We have had the most consistent approach to public health measures and that has led in part, I think, in addition to the contributions of British Columbians, the most significant adherence to public health measures because it is the adherence that has been the most important thing. People in BC have pitched in and it has been exceptional. We have some of the highest rates of vaccination in the world. These are parts of our approach and there are some that have come from BC vaccine card first implemented where the jurisdiction in Canada, one of the jurisdictions in Canada, one of the largest jurisdictions in Canada that has and we have benefited from this extraordinarily during this most recent wave of COVID-19, all of our healthcare workers and our facilities vaccinated. So we have been consistent and thoughtful. I think the response from the public has followed that to a great degree and has shown that we have all done together here. This is not common in other jurisdictions, this is what we have done here. We have dealt with this as our pandemic in BC. It has affected regions of British Columbia differently and at different times. But we have, I think, supported one another in an exceptional way. So I am pretty proud of British Columbia and we are going to continue to follow that approach as we deal with this next phase of the pandemic which still of course exists and still is. And I think that is the question. And that is the next question. And that is the next question comes from Binder Sajan CTV news. Hi, Dr. Henry. I just want to clarify something that I thought I heard you say which was that there could be additional precautions this spring. I know you are talking about lifting restrictions so I was confused about that. Could you just let me know what you were saying there a little bit earlier? I think that we need to pay attention to next fall because we know there will be respiratory virus resurgence and we expect, we have seen that there is a pattern to COVID as well. So we may need these additional layers of protection again as we move into next fall. So if I said spring, that was a mistake I am talking about next fall and winter. Binder, do you have a follow-up? Thank you and at least I know kind of such on this too but what I am hearing and I am sure you hear it too from people is they look at other provinces who are lifting mask mandates, vaccine mandates, et cetera and say what is different about BC here and I know we have talked about and heard you talk about how the restrictions have just been generally different but can you tell us in terms of the science, is it science, is it politics, why are things a little bit different here in BC? It is probably everything about how we have used what we have done and I think if you look at what is happening in provinces and you put it down and you look at dates and what is happening where and what restrictions are in place, we are all very much aligned. So things that are announced that are happening at time in the future, it is a way that some people have been working through this and what we have done is given a timeline for when we are revising things, we are looking at the layers of protection in place in the settings where they are most at risk and if we look at the BC vaccine card and where we have used the BC vaccine card, it has been focusing absolutely on those highest risk indoor settings in discretionary settings and so it has a really important role in helping build confidence going back into those settings as we have come through this wave and we know that it does reduce risk to have only over 60% now of people who are vaccinated have had their booster dose and that reduces risk of transmission. So yes, we are following the process that we have been using and that is slightly different than how other provinces have used their vaccine card. So it is all the same science, it is how it has been implemented and where we have been using things, what restrictions are in place when and where that has been implemented and how we have been using things that have been implemented and how we have been using the vaccine card as well as the vaccine card that we have been using in provinces. Thank you and now we will be coming back to Minister Dix. What is the same in BC is the same approach following what we see in the pandemic here in BC led on the epidemiological side by public health. Of course, so it is reasonable to ask what is different about BC and what is remarkable about BC, I think is the outcomes, which generally have been very good here compared to any other jurisdiction in North America. First of all, just let the bell ring. The outcomes have been very good and I think our response has been consistent. So it is not a race of a few days, I think when provinces announce changes today and so we are going to continue to follow the same approach and I think that is what people in BC want. They want that we have had in many cases relatively fewer measures, more consistency of measures. And so whether it happens one day or one week in one province, one day and one week in another province is not the important question. I think the overall approach continues to be the same, continues to be led by the response of the pandemic and the need to support public health. And I say this one thing finally, while we have less of the people in hospital than we had in COVID-19 at the height of this wave, we still got a significant number of people in hospital. We still have people affected in our health care system as you see in the numbers. So we continue to have to be cautious and that is why you see a thoughtful balanced approach that has been, I think, supported by public health from the beginning here and you are going to continue to see it. Next question goes to Richard Zussman, Global News. I'm sure people will get the impression listening to you today that by spring break we will have at least the mask mandate and the vaccine card potentially eased. Would there still be support from the province when these changes come in place for different businesses or retailers to keep those things in place or will the guidance be when they are gone, no matter what? So I will say we are talking with all of the involved stakeholders. There is a whole lot of things that go on behind the scenes of how we make those decisions about timing and what happens where. But you raise a really good point and I tried to say this a number of times. We are moving to a transition where people have to make those decisions for themselves around what are the important things you need to do. We know that there are people who are not immunized, who are older, who we want to spend time with, where we know the vaccines don't work as well, their immune systems aren't as strong. And we may not even be aware of those people. So yes, we all need to continue to be respectful. We need to have it a mask positive environment. We know that it makes a difference and particularly as we are continuing to see that, we all need to respect that and support that, particularly in schools and in some of the other indoor environments. So I absolutely will support businesses continuing to protect their workers, making sure that depending on what the business is and the risk that they can continue to use the BC vaccine card. It is an important tool that helps people in different situations. That masking will still be in many of those indoor environments where we know it is riskier. And it will be different in different communities. And I will also say that these are not tools that we abandon. They are things that helped us that worked. They are part of the strategies that we've had. As before we had vaccination, they were the only strategies we have. Now we have that level of immunity, but that's going to change and wane over time. We have to keep those in our back pocket for those times when we might need to use them again. ≫ Richard, do you have a follow-up? ≫ I know spring break is a very natural transition point as you alluded to. Is there any pressure on changing the rules because we may have an influx in BC from people from other jurisdictions where they will no longer have masks, mandates or vaccine cards. We would like that sort of universal set of policies across the country. ≫ I hadn't thought about that. If you think about it right now, Saskatchewan, as my colleague in Saskatchewan reminded us this morning, spring comes early in Saskatchewan, so they are on their spring break right now as our Quebec. We've known that in the last couple of years that we get a lot of people who come to the province here. We have a lot of people who come to the province here. We have a lot of people who are in place in BC or in place because of the transmission and the data that we are seeing in our province and we expect that if people come here, whether it's going to Whistler or going to Big White or coming to Vancouver, that they follow the rules that we have in place in the province here. I think that's a natural transition time and really important for all of us who have been thinking about these for the last in some detail is trying to give a sense of normalcy to schools for the end of the year. We are working really closely with the school that K-12, but also the early childhood educators and our child care sector and post-secondary to see what can we do to relieve that pressure on young people in schools and in schools, particularly. The next question comes from Lee. You talked about immunity waning. I'm wondering if you can discuss how we know what you learned from looking at Israel of when we might get those of what we have now or would you wait until there was a new formulation for whatever as you said coming down the line? Lots of questions and I think those are questions that we have watched what is going on in Israel. We have watched Ontario has given a fourth dose to some people in their long-term care, but we also all have slightly different programs. We went very early in BC to the extended interval between dose one and dose two and we kept with the six months for the booster dose even in our long-term care homes and that has proven very effective at giving stronger, longer care homes and that is what we are looking for. We are looking at the health of our community. We are watching and we will continue to look at things like breakthrough infections, who is being affected, how severe illness is happening and monitoring the changes in the virus and the whole genome sequencing is a big part of that. So yes, it will be a matter of timing and a matter of who. We are looking at the immune escape which means we are all again susceptible in which case we would need a booster dose for the broad population. The other scenarios that we could face and we have been thinking through this is a different virus that has more impact on older people in which case only a target group of people might need a booster dose and that might be in the next few weeks or months but those are questions that we are working through. I don't know if this next one is for Minister Dix or for you Dr Henry, but I think we are going to need a booster dose for people who are most at risk. That is our elders and seniors in long-term care. It likely won't be in the next few weeks to months but those are questions that we are working through. I think the next one is for Minister Dix or for you Dr Henry, but you eased restrictions allowing dancing and what not and we have seen videos of places over the weekend where it looks like a party like we have had before the pandemic masks off, people dancing, people milling around. I am wondering is there any more fines being given out or are we throwing our hands up and saying we are going in that direction so things will be what they It's still an important thing for people who live or who work in those settings to make sure they are protected. That's why we have things. We have done things in a sequential way. We have the immunization rates that are very high. We know that makes a difference. It reduces risk substantially. That's why the BC vaccine card is still in play in those places. So that mitigates the risk that we are seeing. We have to make sure that we have to make sure that it mitigates the risk that we are seeing. I just think it's time that we do come together. It's important for us to experience those things that we haven't for a long time, particularly for younger people. And yes, we do ask you to wear masks. But I realize that for owners and operators of these businesses, sometimes that can be challenging. And so we are supporting them and helping to do that in a way that is non-punitive. Over to Minister Dix. Just to say, the BC vaccine card and the mask requirements that exist are provincial health orders that continue to be. It doesn't mean they are in force in every circumstances. Obviously that would be important. Maybe not even desirable. But they are the law. They are what we need to do right now. And I think it's really important and has been really important to stay in the moment in the pandemic. We have had as a result of the announcement of the relaxation of restrictions, a lot more activity. All of us, I think, are done, or many of us in any event have done things that we hadn't done at previous moments in the pandemic. And I think that is both expected and positive. But the rules that are in place continue to be the rules that are in place for good reason. And people need to follow and support those rules. Thank you. And now we will have a question from Dr. Shisler. Black press. Hi. Thank you for taking my question. Last week I had asked you about accessing the post-COVID-19 care clinics here in BC. And you had said the serology test is an acceptable test to get access to that care. Serology tests cost $75 through life labs. And I was just wondering why aren't serology tests covered by MSP? It depends on the situation. So serology tests are covered if they're ordered by a clinician. So it's all part of that process as far as I'm aware. So people who are being referred to that clinic where the clinician believes that that's an important test for them to have, it is covered by MSP. And the minister can correct me if I'm wrong on that. Over to Minister Dix. That's right. Medically necessary care is covered in BC. And that had been expressed at a time when relative to the number of people with COVID, there was less PCR test positive cases. And that's certainly been the case since the end of December, the concern that people wouldn't have access to care. Well, they're going to have access to care. People with long COVID or ongoing symptoms from their COVID-19 transmission are covered for medically necessary care in BC. And it's not for that test or any other test. You don't get to go in and do that. But as Dr Henry has said, advice by a clinician it is the case. Do you have a follow-up? Thank you for that response. I'm sure a lot of people will be relieved to hear that. The next question is about how prepared is BC if we get another variant surge? We're hearing from nurses and health care workers talking about being burnt out. People are leaving the industry. A lot of people are expressing fatigue about COVID measures and I'm sure very tired of it at this point. But if we ease up restrictions and then BC gets slammed by another surge of cases, how resilient is BC going to be in the face of that next wave, the next wave if it comes? I think that is the question that all of us are thinking about globally. There are a lot of around the world, we're all being faced with the changes that we have no control over and this virus does that. That's how viruses work. What we do know more about being able to detect them, being able to find the changes and being able to assess the impacts and I was talking a little bit in the answer to other questions earlier, there are many different scenarios that we can see in the future. Some of them would be more severe illness, some of them will be more transmissible, less severe. It's how well a virus can escape the immune protection we have through vaccination which is proving to be relatively robust which is the good news especially against severe illness. So the answer really is we don't know what is going to happen next and we need to find some way of finding it and for everybody else who's been tired through all this so that's why we're taking things slow right now so that we can relieve that pressure in a measured way and be prepared for what's coming next. We're also spending a lot of time looking at and I'll turn it over to the minister about this, looking at how do we bolster our health human resources in particular, we have lost out, being sick. So how do we support people coming into the health care system so that we are more resilient and more robust. We've seen there's weaknesses in our care system that we need to address. I think there's two points. The first is that there are exceptional challenges continuing to face our health care systems. Why we announced 602 new nurse training positions last week, why we've added more than 6000 people to the seniors care sector with the program that we announced in September of 2020, the age cap program and others that have supported long-term care. So the health human resources question is a central question and we'll be presenting a plan on that shortly that builds on the work that we're doing but it is significant. We've seen all of the effort that's part of surgical renewal. We have because of the work of health care workers, fewer people on waiting lists for surgery doesn't mean there are not a lot of people waiting a long time for surgeries but fewer than there were at the beginning of the pandemic which is an achievement of our health care system. I'd just like to note there's another public health emergency that profoundly affects health care systems and more, the health care system as I would expect, have as busy a year in 2022 as 2021 and it reminds us of why we need to take the steps we continue to take the steps and continue to live in the present with respect to the COVID-19 pandemic because there are many other challenges, people in need of care and we need to provide them with support and so those efforts are going to continue and that's as significant as they were in 2021 and 2020, the only they'll be somewhat different but you're quite right, our health care workers, our nurses, our health sciences professionals, our care aides, the people who put food on the table in our health care facilities, all of those people and of course our doctors and many more, all of them have been affected by this and we need to support them understanding that this is going to be an emergency. Our answers in English and French, please, Dr Henry and update, please, how many cases of the B-A-2 variant have been detected in BC and I was wondering, you've talked about how to be prepared for another wave but what are your concerns about this variant given what's happening in other parts of the world? So I actually don't have the numbers but I can get them for you, I know we've been looking at the numbers of the province so it has been increasing but slowly, the B-A-2 in BC and I think what we are learning and what we're, what I'm hearing from my lab colleagues really is it's around timing of when it was introduced so we're not seeing it rapidly take over. I have obviously been watching really carefully about what we know about B-A-2. There's also a B-A-3 and a number of others as well. We haven't seen any of the .3 in BC yet. So it does seem to be more transmissible and that may be the reason that we're seeing certain pockets around BC having more cases than other places but it does not seem to cause more severe illness or to have more ability to evade the immune system. So those are things we're watching carefully. Yes, these are all concerns that we have and it's going to be the thing we're not looking for is what happened with Omicron that suddenly is going to appear so we need to be prepared for all of it. I will say the one other one that we're watching carefully is that there's been delta Omicron variants that have been found in Australia, in the UK, in small clusters and a few other places. We have not yet seen any of those variants and again can detect that variant as well. Over to Minister Dix. Yes, the particular numbers but we're going to give them before the end of the day that we have. We're going to continue to do our research and tests on the genomics of the pandemic and it's going to continue. It seems that the B.A.2 has a lot to do with it. It seems that the B.A.2 has some more transmissible qualities and that's why this variant is known and found particularly in certain communities. But also, it doesn't seem that it's more severe than the Omicron in general. So there's also a lot to do with the B.A.2 so there's also a variant that combines in some ways. It's a combination of some of the Delta variants and Omicron. And we have seen that, for example, in Australia, but we haven't seen it yet in British Columbia. Belle, do you have a follow-up? I do, please. Minister Dix in English and French, please. You talked about the millions of rapid tests that are going to come to British Columbia over the next three to four weeks. So I'm wondering how soon will people younger than 70 be able to pick them up at pharmacies? And that number you gave us about how many people over 70 have collected their rapid tests? Is it starting to plateau? Could tests that were put aside for them now be given to people in other age groups? Okay. About 70,000 seniors more or less have picked up over 70. And remember in some communities that started on Monday and a number started on Friday. So that's just starting. But we're going to work our way through the age groups fairly quickly. And so we're going to give an opportunity in the next few days for those over 70 to get access to their rapid tests. And we're going to move our way fairly quickly down the age groups. So I would expect that to be announced on various government websites and we'll let you know on social media platforms as well. And we'll let people know through you and members of the media and communities when that's going to happen. And then we're just going to work our way through. Many young people, of course, parents have access to this test because of the large distribution in K-12 and post-secondary education already. So you see that in those weeks, in a similar way to what we did in vaccinations, je dirais en français qu'on a donné à peu près 350,000 tests, un peu partout dans la province, ça veut dire 70,000 individuals, des gens qui ont plus de 70 ans, en Colombie Britannique. Et ça c'est, je pense que c'est juste le commencement. C'était vendredi dans grande partie des communautés, mais aussi lundi, donc on commence. Et on va voir dans les jours à venir, mais je pense qu'on va avoir des gens dans les années 60 sans doute un peu plus tard cette semaine. Et puis ça va aller ainsi de suite. Donc les gens qui ont 50 ans, etc., 50 à 60 ans, après cela. Donc cela va marcher un peu comme les gens qui ont 50 ans, etc., 60 ans, après cela. Donc cela va marcher un peu comme les gens qui ont 50 ans, etc. Et ça va marcher un peu comme on a fait avec la vaccination. Et je pense que ça va aller vite. Il faut forcer le reconnaître que beaucoup de gens qui sont plus jeunes que cela, surtout dans nos écoles, du kindergarten à la deuxième année, ont déjà reçu leur test. Et ça, dans le secteur secondaire aussi, beaucoup de monde qui sont plus jeunes ont déjà reçu le rapid test. Et on va leur test rapide. Et on va avoir cela aussi pour des gens de 50 à 60 ans dans quelques semaines à venir. Et puis après cela, les autres. Thank you very much. Merci beaucoup. Until the next time.