 My name is Adrian Dix, I'm BC's Minister of Health. To my right is Dr Bonnie Henry, BC's provincial health officer, it's our COVID-19 briefing for British Columbia, our update for British Columbia for Wednesday, February the 23rd. We're honoured to be here on the territory of Laquangen speaking people of the Songhees and the Esquimalt First Nations. With that, it's my honour to introduce Dr Bonnie Henry. Thank you very much and good afternoon. Thank you for joining us for this week's COVID-19 briefing. Last week we announced, as I'm sure many people know, the easing of some of the orders and restrictions that had been in place, particularly the ones that had been in place over the last month and a bit as we learned more about Omicron. And we continue to see that things are leveling off, although we are still, of course, having challenges in some areas of the province. Our progress though remains on track and we are continuing to see this steady decline in COVID-19 and these are positive and encouraging trends and as you know, we have committed to reviewing things in the next few weeks with the goal of removing additional measures as soon as we possibly can. Another important and positive note today, our management strategy, as you know, is supported by a number of vaccine and treatment options, some of which have become new. And we anticipated that they'll be new, both vaccine and treatment options to come in the weeks and months ahead. However, we do know that last week, Health Canada approved for use a new class of vaccinations, one called Novavax. This is, will be available in BC in the next few weeks. We don't have a, it has not yet arrived, but we are expecting to have it in British Columbia in the next week to 10 days. And we are expecting to have it in British Columbia in the next week to 10 days. And I think this is really good news. This is an important new, different class of vaccinations. It is what we call a protein subunit vaccine. It's another option for people who require immunization, who have not yet been vaccinated and need it for work. Or for people who are health care workers, for example, for people who have had a reaction to an mRNA vaccine. This is a perfectly good and valid option to make up those doses that you need to get full protection. This is an interesting vaccine. It's one we've been watching for some time. And it's no human derived materials. We're involved in its development. It uses an insect cell line, which is really cool, a moth cell line. And it also has an adjuvant that's made out of soap bark tree adjuvant. So it is plant-based as well in part of it. And what it does, how it's different from the mRNA vaccines, they give the genetic code for the spike protein of the SARS coronavirus to virus. And your body then generates those proteins. In this case, the proteins are, the virus, the baculovirus is used and it generates proteins that are then purified from the virus. So it's a very good option for people who are not purified from these moth cells. And the proteins are put together with this matrix made out of the soap bark tree extract. And so you're given the proteins directly and those stimulate your own immune system to develop antibodies, both antibodies and cell mediated immunity against those proteins. So this is a more traditional type of vaccine. We have a number of other vaccines that use similar protein subunit technology, the influenza vaccines, hepatitis B and soster. So it's a tried and true methodology of making vaccines and we know the immune system responds well. The data that we've seen, that health Canada has proved, it's very efficacious as well. So the efficacy in the trials is upwards of 90% and preventing infection. So this is great news. And another really important thing, it's a fridge-stable vaccine, so we don't have to worry about that in terms of needing to have ultra-low temperature freezers, et cetera. We will, like the one dose Johnson & Johnson, the viral vector vaccines, it will be available primarily through pharmacies and some of our health authority clinics. But if you are interested in the Novavax vaccine, the best thing you can do is call right now our COVID-19 vaccine line. So that's 1-833-838-2323. And tell the people that you're interested in getting the Novavax vaccine, what we'll do is make sure we have your contact information and when the vaccine is available, your dose will be reserved for you in either pharmacy or clinic close to where you live and you'll be able to get that as soon as it comes in. So I think this is fantastic. It's another really important tool that we have now in our toolbox that's going to get us through the long wave but is also going to get us through what comes next. Because we know that the importance of the protection that we get from vaccination is one of those things that has made sure that we can get through this. For those who have not yet booked your booster shot, I strongly encourage you to book your appointment at your local pharmacy in particular as soon as possible. As more and more people have been vaccinated, our demand in our large clinics will continue to increase and so the COVID-19 clinics will be focusing, the health authority clinics will continue to focus on the 5 to 11 immunizations particularly because we know there's important things that we need to have in those clinics to support families and children. But adults can get any of our available vaccines at local pharmacies. In addition to additional vaccine options, we also have, as we talked about about two weeks ago, an additional treatment that is now available and we have got a little bit more supply in the province. In addition to Satrova Mab which is a monoclonal antibody and there are additional monoclonal antibody treatments that are approved for use and are going to be available in Canada in the future. These are especially important for people who are at high risk of having severe illness if they, severe illness and hospitalization if they get COVID. And particularly it includes people who are older, people who have immune compromising conditions and for those people we know you as clinically extremely vulnerable, you've got those notes, we made sure that you got your vaccines early but we do know that some people even with three doses of vaccine, even with a booster dose, don't have a strong immune response and so these treatments are available now for you. They are also important for people who are at high risk of having COVID and people especially if you're over 60 you have other underlying illnesses. So these are a positive step forward but as we talked about as well, like all medications they are not suitable for everyone. In particular Paxilovid has a number of interactions with the number of medications that people may be taking. So to receive either of these, you have to have a positive COVID test and a PCR or rapid antigen test and we are able to get PCR tests and the treatments need to be started within the first few days, the first five days in particular of your symptom onset. So today we have had access through infectious disease physicians in different parts of the province and I want to thank them for the work that they have been doing but we are also now setting up a self-screening tool that is now available and our call support center so that people across the province can determine if this is a treatment that would be right for you and how you can access it. So to request treatment and we'll send the link around, there will be a four-step self-screening tool that you can go online and find out if this is either of these are treatments that might be suitable for you and a virtual assessment service that will now be available through the province's COVID-19 information center and we will be sending out the links to those information and posting them on our COVID-19 websites and on the BCCDC website. These are important to help prevent severe illness but it is also a reminder that the most important thing we can do is preventing getting sick in the first place and that of course means vaccination. It is our most important tool particularly for older people, for people who have reasons that make them clinically extremely vulnerable to COVID. We know and we presented these data that two doses remains very, very effective at preventing severe illness even eight months, ten months later. And we know now from data from the BCCDC, from data that has been collected as well in Quebec and other parts of the world that that booster dose makes a difference. It makes a difference in boosting that prevention for severe illness and hospitalization but it also prevents transmission and it is about 60%, 70% effective of preventing any symptoms at all. And in Quebec they looked as well, it is about 80% effective. If you get that booster dose, it reduces your risk of needing to go to an emergency department because of symptoms because of COVID. So we do now have good strong data that tells us with Omicron that booster dose is important, it prevents you from getting sick at all, it prevents transmission and it prevents illness. So please, if you have not yet, if you have been invited, it has been six months, go out and get that booster shot. And if you have concerns because of the reaction perhaps to your second dose of the mRNA vaccines, it is an option to get Novavax as a booster dose depending what other vaccines you have had initially. If you have not yet had your first or second dose, even if you are, particularly if you are a young person, five to 11, please talk to your pediatrician, talk to your pharmacist about the importance of protecting young people from illness as well. We still have a lot of this virus that circulating and this protection is good, strong, safe protection and long lasting and it will help us for what we are dealing with now but also as we are going through this transition phase and into the future. Testing of course continues to be part of our ongoing efforts and last week it was shared that we finally have received quite a lot of the at-home tests that are available for people. These are rapid tests that can be used by people at home and they will be distributed, they have already started through schools throughout the province and the tests will soon be able to be, we will also be distributed to people based on their risk which of course means age and I will leave it to the minister to give details of that. But I want to just remind people that these tests are a tool that helps you determine what activities you can do if you have symptoms. That is when they are best used and I have talked about this before. They are a red light and not a green light so if you have symptoms and you need to know if they are COVID then these rapid tests are a really great way of doing that and then you need to isolate until you are five days or until you are better. If you don't have symptoms or sorry if you have symptoms and you test negative it doesn't mean that all of those other measures that we have in place right now you can ignore. It means that you need to continue taking care, making sure that you are safe. As more tests arrive in BC we will be able to expand our availability to even more people and I will refer people to the BC CDC and we will put links again on guidance and how they are best used to support your decision making for you and for your family in the coming weeks and months. We are also transitioning to what will be our sustainable COVID-19 management strategies we have talked about and we will be working on effective response, recovery and then readiness for what lies ahead. This means we will be continuing things like our whole genome sequencing surveillance and I know there has been a lot of concern about potential variants like the BA.2, the Omicron variant that is increasing in transmission in some countries around the world like Denmark and the UK. We have seen that here in BC and more in different parts of the province. We have seen that increasing but slowly here in British Columbia we will continue to monitor that. We have also been monitoring things like the Delta Omicron variant that has been causing a few clusters particularly the UK and Australia. We have not yet seen any of those mixed variants here in BC but our whole genome sequencing program is designed to detect those and we will continue to look for these. We will also continue to expand our data and we will continue to monitor things using such things that we have done periodically like zero surveys to help us understand how much immunity is in the community. We are in the process of expanding the waste water surveillance that has proven to be so helpful as yet another marker that helps us understand what is happening and continuing to monitor things like the PCR test positivity rates, geographic rates of disease and outbreaks and illness. Each step of the way as we move through this next few weeks we will be making our decisions about lifting restrictions, about lifting mandates and orders based on what we are seeing here, where we are seeing transmission and the data that we have about our pandemic here in British Columbia and as you know we are at a different pace and a different place in our pandemic than many other parts of the world and the country. I remember that while our cases are coming down, COVID-19 is still actively circulating and I know many people who have children know that, that we are seeing it in young people, in schools, associated with some schools and we are also seeing it in communities around the province in different ways. We also have seen tragically that we still are seeing people dying from COVID-19. Most of them are people who have underlying illnesses, people who are older. However, in the last few days we have had four people in their 40s who have died from COVID-19. That is important. It reminds us that everybody has risk right now. We still have high levels of transmission and if you don't have the protection that vaccine gives you, there is a possibility of having more severe illness and ending up in hospital. So I encourage anybody who has not yet taken that move to think about that as an option right now. Keeping our COVID safety basics are just important today, if not more so than they were last week as we started to get back to many of those activities and social activities that we have missed over the last month or so. So I ask that you please be respectful of others as we go through this transition. We can and should all go at our own pace, at our own comfort levels. We can assure that we are wearing masks where it is appropriate for us, keeping our distance from people, particularly if we have people in our family, in our community, in our workplace who are vulnerable to more severe illness. It is about moving slowly and gradually in the one-way direction only so that we don't have to have a turning back of the dial. This means all of us continuing as we have been doing in BC to be mindful and respectful of each other, to manage our own risks and equally important, be mindful and respectful of the risks of those around us. This is our long-term sustainable strategy that will get us through this transition period and help us deal with what comes next. As Omicron fades and as we see what comes next in this pandemic, these are the things that will get us through. And on today, on Pink Shirt Day, I think that lifting each other up is important and it is how we will get through this pandemic together and continue to remind us to do that and to remind us to be kind with each other. Thank you. Thank you very much, Dr Henry. Today I will provide an update on BC's rapid test inventory and updates on health care workers off sick last week and surgical postponements. We have a slide deck which will be presented after the presentation that describes the rapid antinutrient distribution strategy and we will go through that now. I will get some help. The inventory summary, first of all, we have been reporting this week to week and this is as of February 22, 2022 or yesterday. BC has received 22,242,902 tests. We have deployed 14,843,222 tests. And that leaves 7,000,000 399,683 tests in inventory. We are expecting approximately, and this depends on our distribution, when we receive them from the federal government, approximately 3,000,000 tests per week in the coming four weeks for 12 million tests. Reminding you that about 558,000 tests are not suitable for home use. Although those tests will be continued to be used by public health to support home use. We have a number of tests that will be used by public health to support particularly in dealing with clusters of cases. So if we go on to the next slide, which is not the last week, but this brings us up to February 22, you will see that over the last week, the last week, we distributed a further 4.83 million tests around BC. In the last week, 3.3 million of them went to K-12 schools or post-secondary institutions. We have a number of tests that have been distributed to other institutions. Another 418,000 were distributed to other population channels, primarily long-term care and assisted living. And a number of tests, about 865,000 have been pre-positioned for community tests distribution by pharmacies and we will get to that later. You will see on this slide, if we go back to the slide, that we see the overall distribution of tests, which is 12,838,020 since December 13, 2 million prior to that. And that the largest number so far have gone to education, to long-term care, to health care workers, and to COVID testing sites, but they have also gone to rural, remote and indigenous communities, to child care facilities, and most recently, to pharmacy distributors. So that's where the rapid tests have gone. Distribution this week, we will continue to focus in on the long-term care, and we will continue to focus in on those. So all of those priority areas that we have talked about will continue to be replenished as tests are used, whether it be long-term care, or remote communities, or others. We are now, of course, expanding that strategy regarding rapid antigen tests. And what we are going to do is make tests available the easier for people and get them into the hands of more people and get them into the hands of the public, and I will talk about that in her presentation. So here are the new approaches . We have the new approaches to it. Because as you can see, the priorities have been the priorities we laid out over the last number of while as you have seen the distribution of those priorities, as sufficient numbers of rapid tests have come into place, we are developing that in the next week. Previously, we focused on priority high-risk populations. Last week, we announced additional distribution through schools, K-12 and post-secondary, with the important shift of tests now being taken home for use at home by the student and their families if they were to become symptomatic. As we announced last week, that is 5.9 million tests. We are going to go to that purpose, essentially five per day, of a very significant number of those tests distributed last week. This week, we are adding community distribution channels through community pharmacy to make more tests accessible to the full population. So the next slide, what is the same? What is the same is that we are continuing that the focus continues remains on using the tests for when an individual is symptomatic. Focus remains on striving to have tests available, particularly for people with COVID-19. Those individuals where testing is clinically indicated, were a positive result with impact, treatment or care, individuals who live or work in settings with others who are high risk for severe illness. High-risk individuals continue to be encouraged to seek a PCR test if they are systematic. And what is new, we are increasing test availability through existing channels of distribution and we are creating new channels, such as the distribution update shows that in the last week, we have seen this distribution of tests, we will move on to the pharmacy distribution. Pharmacies will distribute a rapid antigen test containing five tests through this additional channel to interested individuals. There will be no cost to citizens for these tests. More than 865,000 have already been pre-positioned to a pharmacy distributor from which pharmacies can order and receive stocks. Kits will start being available for pickup at select pharmacies as early as Friday and it is expected Please check and there will be a website at the BC pharmacy association for a list of pharmacies that are dispensing tests. How will it work? Well, for starters, we are going to use the same approach we have taken throughout the pandemic and focus in on those who are most at risk to severe outcomes from COVID-19. And that means in particular those over 70. So that is where we are going to start. Distribution will start for those 70 and over who are amongst the highest risk, as we mentioned earlier, in a period if you need to be 70 or over to get access to these tests. Once distribution has started and supply grows, a broadening to younger ages will essentially go down. The age ladder as we have previously, broadening to younger ages is expected to happen quickly and will be communicated via our government COVID-19 website. Individuals will present their BC services card at the pharmacy and will be given their test kit free of charge to ensure as many people as possible have access. There will be a limit of one kit per person within a 28-day period. You can pick up a kit for a family member, another person, you must provide their name, date of birth, and have their BC services card with you. And so that is what we are going to do. We are going to be starting for all those at the beginning over 70 and then moving down the age brackets as we will assist in distribution in particular assist those who are most vulnerable to get access to rapid tests. Dr Henry has talked about that. There is full instructions on the BC CDC website, I encourage you to go there. And there is four things you can do. Report your test at reportcovidresults.bccdc.ca self-isolate, manage your symptoms, notify your close contacts. And finally going forward as more tests arrive and as supply and capacity allows will be providing greater access to all BC citizens. Increased test availability means more members of the general public will be able to access tests to use to understand their own symptoms and illness. So what we have done from the beginning as we laid out in our plan on December 21st is prioritize the people most at risk. And the first millions of tests as they arrive were prioritized for that reason. Now we have more tests. And first, last week, out to schools and post-secondary institutions, K-12 schools and post-secondary institutions. And starting at the end of this week, we have over 70 pharmacies to people in the community starting with those over 70. And as they say, as more tests arrive, we will be able to lower those age groups who are eligible to get tests. With respect to a second issue today, the impact of sickness on health care workers, we saw a decrease in the number of staff with short-term illness. 14,579 during the week of February 14th to 20th. That is down from the previous week, which reported 15,524 health care workers off sick. That is 3,127 in Fraser health, 2,840 in Interior health, 1,510 in Northern health, 1,478 in the Provincial Health Services Authority, 2,044 in Vancouver Coastal Health, 3,018 in Island Health, and 562 in Providence Health Care. This is off sick for all reasons. And it continues to be higher. And it continues to be higher. And it continues to be higher. And it continues to be higher than previous periods and previous equivalent periods, say, February and previous years. But it has significantly come down. As you know, two weeks ago and three weeks ago, it was between 17 and 18,000. And now it's down under 15,000 to 14,579. Health authorities with respect to surgeries report that 6,070 surgeries were completed from January 23rd to January 29th. For those of you who are not aware of this report, please go to February 29th. From February 13th and 19th, health authorities postponed 288 non-urgent scheduled surgeries. That's 6 in Fraser Health, 4 in Northern Health, 270 in Interior Health, 6 in Island Health, 2 in the Provincial Health Services Authority. No surgeries were postponed in the Vancouver Coastal Health Authority. Cumulatively from September 5th, 2021 to February 19th, 2022, regional surges of COVID and factors including severe weather patterns have caused 7,925 surgical postponements. As you can see, this was primarily and continues to be primarily an issue in the Interior Health Authority. Our staff there is working flat out to support patients. We are continuing to deliver urgent scheduled surgeries and emergent surgeries in the Interior Health Authority. And we will be making efforts, continued efforts to support that health authority as it deals with the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. On May 7, 2020, we made a surgical renewal commitment to patients. We said we would do three things. We said we would deliver surgeries that were postponed because of the pandemic. We said we would schedule and deliver surgeries that were not scheduled because of the pandemic. And we said we would change the way we deliver surgeries to get more patients their surgeries faster. As we have reported in weekly updates , we have seen severe weather have done to the challenge of achieving these goals. We have done what we said we would do. And we continue to deliver on our commitment. As we reported last week, patients whose surgeries were postponed in this fifth wave have started to get their calls to rebook their surgeries. Patients whose surgeries were postponed in this fifth wave have started to receive their surgeries. Innovations to increase surgical capacity were launched in every health institution in need of surgeries. We will complete the postponed surgeries. We will continue to increase surgeries and we will improve access far beyond what the pandemic has set us back. Our commitment to change the way surgeries are delivered in BC, that's our commitment. And that is what we are doing. And that is what we are going to continue to do. The patients in all health authorities are getting calls to rebook their surgeries is in large measure because of the work we are all doing. And we will continue to do the current surge and those calls will continue to occur and will increase in direct proportion to all the actions we continue to take to stop COVID spread. Our work makes all the difference. Your work makes all the difference. And for that reason, our work is not done. And with that, we are happy to take your questions. A reminder to media on the line, please press R1 to enter the queue. You will be limited to one question . How will pharmacies, it could be for either Dr. Henry or Minister Dix, how will pharmacies ensure that the right people are getting the test? If somebody shows up under the age of 70, will they be told they can't have a test? How quickly should those under the age of 70 expect to have access? I know in the presentation you said soon is that this week, next week, by the end of the month, what's the timeline in that regard? Can we ensure those that are symptomatic are the ones that are actually getting the test as you've laid out the presentation? A couple of things and I'll start to see if the minister has things to add. We don't want symptomatic people to go into a pharmacy and get a test kit right now. That's not if you're symptomatic and you're in any of the high-risk groups or you need to have a test because of your symptoms, you can go to the symptoms screener, get a PCR test, or get a test kit and receive a testing kit there. These are for people to have at home to use when they need to make a decision about what to do when they have symptoms in the future. We are prioritizing because we know that there's a pent-up demand out there and we finally have enough that we can distribute them out more broadly to people. But we want to make sure that the access is that we prioritize access and that's our seniors and elders. We know that. We know they've always been most at risk and that is for them to have to use either for themselves if they get symptoms, but importantly, to be able to use as a tool to screen people who are around them if they need to. So if you're coming to visit or if there's somebody that's coming into your center, particularly into your home, particularly if they're concerned about that, people can use to help manage their own risk around them. So yes, we'll be starting and we intentionally started with people over the age of 70 so that they would get preferential access at the first. We know that there will be a lot of people who want them now and as we get more and more available, they'll be available to everybody. But we want to make sure it's easy for those who are most at risk to get them and if we get the supplies that we're expecting over the next four weeks, then I fully expect it will be available to everybody to pick up over the next probably three to four weeks at the most. So this is not going to help determine what you do today if you're feeling unwell today, but it is something that will help us for the future, for the next few weeks and months, but really importantly, these are tools that we can help manage, self-manage our own risk and the risk of our families. And so we know that a lot of younger families will be getting the test kits through schools. Many people are getting access through their workplaces. So we want to make sure that with this first tranche that's coming in, we're prioritizing it and making it easy for elders and seniors to get access as well. And where it will be important is as we continue to see cases decrease in communities, when we start to see sporadic increase in cases of respiratory illness next fall, maybe, or even before, if that happens, then people will have these tools at home that they can use to help self-manage their risk. Did you want to add in for us? So, Richard, we laid out two sets of priorities. The first were students in K-12 and post-secondary education, and those students who have been going out will be distributed to them. That's 5.9 million tests. And so that with test packages of five is more than a million people, which is significant to focus on that group of people. As we make the tests available to broader public distribution, we're starting with people 70 and over. So those are the ones who would have access in the initial period to the test. And those age groups will go down, as you mentioned, so you'll provide, you go, you provide your date of birth, and your BC services card or your health number, and get access to the test, to your package of tests, so that you'll be able to have that at home. It's a good way to distribute them and ensure, I think, a common distribution that focuses the tests initially on those that most at risk from COVID-19. So it will be something that people will understand well. And it will be something that will be free of charge to people in BC. ≫ Richard, do you have a follow-up? ≫ Is there any update? I think probably for you, Dr. Henry, from last week, when you mentioned that the college are investigating doctors who are spreading misinformation, is there any update on whether or how those investigations are going or where we're at with those concerns? And also, we're working on a story that has been circulated and they produced fraudulent vaccine cards. Is this sort of thing acceptable and what can the province do to ensure that people are not producing fake vaccine cards to their employers? ≫ So with regards to the first, I have no insight into the college's processes that they have to investigate. I did see something in the media that at least one physician was there was something happening, but I really can't talk to that. You'll have to talk to the college. I have no way of knowing how these things are progressing, but I know that they do have a process that is gone through. In terms of people providing fraudulent vaccine information, this is something we talked a little bit about a couple of months ago. We do have ways of determining if a vaccine record is a true record and we were following up on a few, I think it was a record that we knew were fraudulent records. So that is a process that the PHSA or MBC program has and if needed, when I know there was at one point to some people making profit off of fraudulent vaccine records, that police would be involved. I can't speak obviously to these two individuals, but I will say there is a new option now if people had concerns about the vaccines, if they had concerns about the effectiveness and the value of the mRNA vaccines, that they have other options now, including the Novavax vaccine, that was just approved for you. So I would encourage people to get the protection that you need, especially if you are in an important position, like an emergency responder like firefighters are. Did you want to add that? Next question comes from Maria Weissgarber, CTV. I was curious at the distribution of vaccines, the Gargoyle tests also still be made available through schools. I know those were being offered as well for a while for students who are symptomatic at school. So the Gargoyles is a way of collecting, a less invasive way of collecting a sample for PCR tests, and yes, absolutely, we still have Gargoyles available for younger people, also for adults who don't like having a swab stuck up in their nose, and those are still available for older people. I know some of the schools are still using those, so the rapid tests serve a different purpose. So they are ones that you can take home to help support those decision makings if and when you develop symptoms at home. So a slightly different purpose. They are more thinking about how we manage in the future, but absolutely, the Gargoyle tests are still available at all of the testing centres, and I know it's a little bit of a different program in different parts of the province, but absolutely, they are the PCR tests. Yes, I was curious about the online reporting. I know that the province has indicated if people get positive results on the rapid tests, you know, they are asking if people would report results online to the BCCDC. I'm curious about the rate of uptake with that, if there have been many results, but I know that there have been many results being reported, and now that there is going to be a wider distribution, is the province still putting a lot of importance on people self-reporting, voluntarily self-reporting if they get a positive result? So it's a bit of a challenge. It is one way of helping us understand, you know, how many people are getting a positive test on the rapid tests. But there are many, many limitations, and that's one of the limitations that we're not including it as a routine surveillance stream, because, as you know, the access to tests is changing, and it's only numerator data. So we don't actually know how many tests have been used at any point in time, so it doesn't give us a sense of what proportion of people are testing positive. It does give us a little bit of an idea in a different community, for example, on who is testing, and who is testing, and who is testing. So it really is limited information, and it will be potentially a useful tool, not so much right now, when we still don't have a lot of, you know, as testing is, access to testing is increasing to the rapid tests. But it can be something where we can target people being able to download that information in a specific community. I'm thinking in the future, if we get down to a nice low level of transmission, and then we see respiratory illness going up in a certain community, we can target that community and say, hey, if you're using the rapid test, please let us know if you're positive. So it is an important tool that we don't yet know all of its, how it can be used. We've been talking with colleagues in the UK in particular who have had rapid tests in the long period of time and do have a very similar voluntary reporting online. And there are limitations to that, so we're still trying to figure out where it's most of value. Next question comes from Lisa Yuzda, City News. Hi there, I'm asking a question on behalf of a colleague in regarding long COVID, I'm wondering with Omicron and the faster incubation period, we're looking at the number of people who are finding that two and a half months, they're feeling like they're having long COVID and their doctor thinks they are, but they can't get into the clinics yet because there's a three-month cutoff. So I'm wondering is the criteria at this point to narrow, is it going to change as, I guess, more people have become infected and I'm wondering where you're at with that and what you have to say on the screen, who started following this through their family physician clinics, primary care clinics. So yes, by definition, one doesn't meet the criteria for long COVID until 12 weeks from your infection. So that's a standard definition that people are using around the world. It doesn't mean that people don't have symptoms in that period of time, but many people they'll resolve within 12 weeks, so that's one of the sort of case definition that we're finding is that vaccination, if you get infected after being vaccinated and we're seeing that more commonly now with Omicron, your risk of developing long COVID is considerably lower. You know, much more, 50% at least, but considerably lower. So that's good news and that goes back to Delta as well. And the number of people who truly have COVID-19, they're probably less than initially thought, so the data from the UK looks at probably 5% to 10% of people. And that's pre-Omicron. So we're still trying to figure out, as you know, Omicron really burst onto the world stage less than 12 weeks ago. So still trying to understand it. One thing that is clear is that there are a variety of different types of symptoms that persist. One thing that is clear is that there are a variety of different symptoms that have been consistently associated with people having long COVID and it reminds us that this is a virus that affects more than the respiratory symptoms, respiratory system. It has effects on our blood vessels, on our blood system, on our heart, and on a neurological system. So people are, as you mentioned, and talking about brain fog, but things like that, that can last for quite a long time, and other things that can be more debilitating. So we are still learning a lot about this, and it doesn't mean that if you're feeling really unwell in that period of time, there aren't things you can do. And what I would encourage you to do if you have a family physician, talk to their family physician, there's the race line, the support line that the family physician can call to get advice and we know can help people get through those symptoms even before three months. We know that things like getting rest, those basics that help us get over infections in the first place, but making sure nutrition and getting rest and exercised in a managed way are things that can help a lot too. That sounds like motherhood things, but those are very important things for helping recover from viral infections. Lisa, do you have a follow-up? I do. Regarding the rapid tests and schools, sort of two-fold question, I think a lot of parents were under the presumption that their child, like each child was going to get a five-test kit. So there's some frustration with that, and I think when people see 7.4 million getting the inventory wondering why can't they all just go out now. If schools are not vectors of transmission which have been told all along, why are schools being focused on to get these rapid tests? I'll start and then I'll turn it over to the minister. If we talk about 7 million tests, and this is one of my frustrations, my pet peeves, they're not 7 million individual test kits of five. So divide by five to think about how many test kits there are there. Initially, the tests that we were distributing through schools were ones that we had broken down from kits of 25 or 35 into three or sometimes single kits. So I know some of those have gone out through schools, but the new ones that have come in that were started to be distributed last week come in a box and there's five tests in the box with the reagents and each child would get one of those boxes of five. So that's how we're going to be moving forward with it. So we know that schools themselves are not amplifiers, but we know that all of those activities that kids in school can have COVID. And so what the purpose of the rapid antigen test, and this is something, the at-home tests in particular, this is something that we've been looking at for several months and expecting that we would get more in finally. So it's not, it's to help manage you at home. So if you're at home and you get up in the morning and your child has symptoms, it's a tool that can help you determine whether your child should go into school today or not. So it's for the future, for helping us manage and self- manage and look after ourselves. If our child is sick this afternoon, we're not feeling well, you can make those decisions about whether you're going to go visit an elderly person or whether you need to stay away from your grandparents for a couple of days. So it's to help you make those decisions based on what's happening for you. So I think about it as we often in medicine will do the test and say if you don't hear from us then everything's fine. Well, this is the other way about the health care system. So I think it is a tool that is, it's not going to solve all our problems, but it is something that people can use to help them make decisions and it will help us through this next few weeks and months, but it is something, a tool that we hope will be able to help us as we transition through this pandemic phase and going forward. And as you can see, because we've been working with the federal government and we distributed them, we started with the priorities that we had that we laid out on December 21st, which is to support testing centers, support healthcare workers, support long-term care, and assisted living in rural, remote and indigenous communities, to K-12 education, to post-secondary education, to child care, and these were our priorities and to support congregate living in different places. All of those areas that we prioritized have now received sufficient rapid tests to take them into the future and they will continue to be topped up. We now have more tests available. We are making them available to students in that system, which I think will be of assistance to parents and to those most vulnerable, those over 70, and we are going to move our way through and really the thing that will decide how quickly we move through age groups, it will be a significant number of rapid tests to schools last week. We started the process of going through community pharmacy. So you will see the results of that. As we get more in, we will distribute more out and we will be able to drop the age of where people will be accessible. A lot of people have access to rapid tests in the coming weeks and that will continue to be the case as they become available. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you for the phone news. Thank you for this. Dr Henry, in looking at the numbers of cases and hospitalizations and such, the interior seems to be declining a bit slower than the rest of the province. I know you said in the past that Omicron came to the interior later than the lower mainland. Is this just a factor of it taking longer to work its way through or are there other cases where they were still dealing with quite a lot of Delta and it was a bit later that we saw the Omicron surge. But it also reflects the fact that in a number of communities in the interior and we are seeing this in the north as well, there is lower rates of vaccination. So the virus has much more opportunity to infect more people and we are seeing that reflected in the numbers we are seeing in the interior and in the north, the peak has been delayed and also going down more slowly. And the proportion of people in hospital is a little bit higher. But we are seeing, we have seen turning the corner. The other thing that we are also watching is what proportion of cases are the BA 0.2. We are seeing a little bit of an increase in that. It is more infectious. It doesn't seem to cause more severe illness. But again, more infectious in people, particularly who haven't had their booster dose, who aren't vaccinated. And so that is important too, as one of the drivers in some communities. Rob, do you have a follow-up? Yes, I do. I just don't know too whether it is a concern with the operator listening to their regulations and they tend to come to the geoconorgans. And do we have any indication that they are bringing that here and what are you doing to try to get that vaccination rate up in the interior? I know interior health is doing lots to try and encourage it and provide information. And it really is going back to those basics. Ensuring that people have the information they need to be confident in the vaccine, that it is accessible and convenient for them. And to get over that sense of complacency, and I think we have seen that a lot of people have a mild disease, and it is a mild disease in people who have that immune protection for the most part, not in everybody, but for people who have vaccination, particularly if you have two doses of vaccine on board, then for most people it has been a relatively mild experience. It doesn't mean it's the same for everybody. We see that in people who have died and we see that it is older people, even older people, who need to protect them. I would also say that for everybody in the interior who is not yet, availed themselves of vaccine, we now have a new option for you, the Novavax, and I know there is a lot of concerns in some communities. There was concerns about the mRNA vaccines, and I think this is a very effective alternative for you. And I encourage you to call the call centre, 323, and put your name on the list to get your vaccine as soon as possible. And yes, we do see there is quite a lot of people moving back and forth between Alberta and parts of the interior and the north. What we need to say is, when you are here, we expect you to do the things that we are all doing to protect each other and our communities here in BC. So that is following the guidelines that we have in place, making sure that you have the opportunity to get protection through vaccination. Next question goes to Cole Schisler, Black Press. Cole Schisler, thank you for taking my question. It is not long COVID. So to access the post-COVID-19 recovery clinic, people need to have a positive COVID-19 swab or a positive serology test. During the peak of our Omicron way of testing capacity was limited here in the United States. So for people who were unable to access a test because of lack of supply, who may have got Omicron and may now have long COVID, what supports are available for those people? So there is a serology test, as you mentioned, that can tell whether you have had an infection with COVID. So that is one of the things that the clinic can do. So again, it is talk to your family doctor if you have one. You can call 8-1-1 to get to know how to do that. But talk to your clinician, make sure you can get that the signs and symptoms are assessed. Your physicians and nurse practitioners can get direct access to clinicians who are working in those clinics. They are not available in every community, but they are designed to be a hub and spoke so they can support your family physician in your community in supporting you as well. So if you have not had a test and you have had COVID-like symptoms, is to get a serology test that will help understand if you were infected or not. And yes, you can tell the difference between some of the immune markers from vaccination versus from infection. So that is available and the clinicians in the post COVID recovery clinics can provide advice on how to get those tests if they are indicated. Thank you. Do you have a follow-up? Yes, thank you. Does BC recognize long COVID as a disability? That is a very good question. So it is not my role, our role to recognize a disability. It depends on the symptoms that somebody has. And it would depend on the circumstances that they have. So if somebody is infected or if they are infected or if they are infected or if they are infected, it is not the case. So if somebody for work, for example, it would go through things like work safe BC assessments to determine if it was a work-related disability. So yes, some people who have long COVID do have disabilities. But it is specific to the individual and it depends on what signs and symptoms they have and how it affects them. So that is a discussion that is about how the illness is affecting them individually. We have time for one more question today. We will go to Karen Larson, CBC. Hi, thanks very much. I would like answers in English and French, if you could, please. So, Dr. Henry, how do you explain what appears to be a relatively low rate of vaccination for 5 to 11-year-olds? Well, this is something actually, we had a long conversation about that with colleagues across the country as well as some international experts just today. You know, this is something that we are seeing across the board. If we look at, we are at about 55% here in BC and that is about the same as Ontario, Quebec and most of the provinces across the country, the exception of Labrador, where they have overall much higher immunization rates. It is also aligned with the polling early on that we are seeing early on before vaccine was available. We asked parents about intentions to vaccinate younger children. So, I think there is some and it is what we heard. We heard that about 50% of parents were going to sign up right away and then there was a proportion of people, 20 to 30% who wanted to understand more and wait until they saw more information, more data about the vaccine. We now know quite a lot more about how COVID is affecting that younger age group and about the safety of the vaccines, how well they are working. So, we are all at a point now where we need to look at, okay, what do we do to provide that information that parents are looking for and to support them in getting children vaccinated? So, again, I think it is important. We have seen and we have seen in our data here in BC a higher number now of younger children because it has been, Omicron has been transmitting so while we are seeing more children need hospital care. Thankfully, it is still quite low in terms of rates, but it does mean that the more children who are affected, the more children will have severe illness and end up in hospital either from exacerbation of asthma or other illnesses or from COVID itself. So, it is important to protect children and now we have a lot of information about how well they are doing it. It is also, I believe, really important for helping to get us through these trying times for children, particularly in schools, to make it easier for them to participate fully in activities and not worry that they are bringing it home to family members who may be more vulnerable. So, there is a whole lot of reasons why it is important to continue to provide the information that is needed and for people to really encourage parents, talk to your pediatrician, talk to your pharmacist, talk to your public health nurse in your community, because we have lots more information now that really support how safe these vaccines are, how well they work and the impacts that COVID has had on younger people, because we do need to get those immunization rates up. I think it is going to be really important for getting us through this transition phase, but also for people who are in the community. I think Ken will share this with you, Karen, which you may be interested in, with reporters. If you go from the age of 17 down and under 18, every time you go down one-year age cohort, the number of people at youth or children vaccinated gets less and less. So, 17 and 16-year-olds are actually vaccinated above the provincial average of vaccination, then it declines every individual and the other thing we see in the numbers is, well, there isn't a great deal of difference between adults over 70 in different parts and living in different health authority regions in the province. There is a significant difference between children 5 and 11 as by health authority with the highest levels of vaccination for children 5 to 11 being in Vancouver Coastal Health above the 70% mark. So, those are the basic information for the people in the province that I think we are going to continue our efforts to communicate the message. That is to say that these vaccines are very effective and it is very important for children of 5 to 11 years to receive their vaccination. And we will continue this work. It is about 56% now. The number of people who receive their vaccination will continue this work. It is about 56% now. The number of people who receive their vaccination will continue this work. Those who receive their children in the second dose will continue to increase. I think it is the demand that 56% of the population are determined that their children are vaccinated and that others are in hesitation . We have to work and we have to work and we have to work and we have to work and we have to work and we have to work And we have to continue to work with parents. And that is what parents indicated before the start of this business. And we have to continue to work with them to better communicate these teachings so that people are able to make appropriate decisions. Karen, do you have a follow-up? Yes, I do. I have a follow-up. I have a follow-up. I have a follow-up. Yes, I do. And English and French again, if you could please. Minister Dix, is there anything the province could have done differently than to try and increase those numbers of the 5 to 11-year-olds or to convince parents to vaccinate their children? And should we expect a different strategy? Yeah, so, you know, we had a very intentional strategy based on the information that we received from parents and from guardians and from community members about what they were looking for in vaccinating children. So, we have done it in a whole variety of settings, but we really have focused the things that we heard that were most important. We're having immunizers who were used to dealing with children and being with children. And having clinics that were designed to make it an experience that was as least dramatic as possible for children. So, we've done that and you see as we're transitioning to much of the mass clinics being scaled back, we're focusing on having those important experiences where you can bring your child even if they have concerns, even if you're worried that they're going to scream or be upset or be concerned because we know that the people there at those clinics know how to make this an experience that's positive for children and to make sure that they are vaccinated in a way that supports them. That was the number one most important thing. So, we have been focusing on that. Having said that, in different communities, we have tried and worked on many different aspects of the supporting families, making sure it's in a place where they feel comfortable and a language that they feel comfortable. The information is in a format that resonates and that answers the questions that parents have. So, there's a lot that we've done. And we will continue to follow along with that strategy. A parent, a family, a community at a time to make sure that we're providing those opportunities for all young people to get vaccinated. And I mentioned we're on this call. This is something that we're seeing in many communities around the world. And that it is really about addressing what I keep calling the three Cs, complacency, the sense that children aren't at risk. Convenience, making it easy for parents, making it in a language that they understand in a setting that they feel comfortable. All of those things are really, really important. And confidence in the vaccine. And as we have more and more young children vaccinated, and we've seen the effects that COVID is having, particularly Omicron over the last few weeks, we have more and more information to build confidence and to share with parents. So we will continue to really focus on addressing those needs for families and for parents and for children. And as you know, 93.5% of adults over 18 have received their first dose COVID-19 vaccination. Over 91% have received their second dose. Of those eligible, well over 60% of adults have received their booster doses. So I think there's a strong understanding of the need for vaccination. We talked to people prior to the approval of the pediatric vaccination from 5 to 11. Many parents told us that they wanted to wait a while. Well, 200,000 children now have, or just under 200,000 children have received their specially designed pediatric vaccine. And it's proven to be effective. It's proven to be safe. And I think this is the moment we're going to continue to see parents bring their children to be vaccinated. So we're continuing to grind those numbers up slowly, and I expect we'll continue to do so, and it will succeed in it. I think one of the differences between the availability of vaccines for adults and the availability for children, it was a little different. You'll recall that we got access to the vaccines on December 13th or so of 2020 for adults. But because of supply, it was quite a bit of time before most adults had access to them. We focused on long-term care and other things so people had time with it. Whereas with the pediatric vaccines, basically we had sufficient vaccine immediately. So that period which some people took to wait and consider was not available. And so we believe strongly believe that the evidence is so strong that it makes children safer, that it makes their families safer, that it will make everywhere around them safer, that we're going to continue to see those numbers go up. There are regional differences so we have to continue to provide information. You saw that Fraser Health put out an information bullet in the day about some new places where the pediatric vaccine will be available. And what I would say is and what will continue is a real focus of public health on ensuring that the people doing the vaccinations have lots of experience with children. And the experience that I've heard from parents is how positive it has been at our vaccination clinic and that has everything to do with the extraordinary work done by public health nurses and doctors and others. I would say in French that we will continue and they work with it, right? It's 56% everywhere in the province. But we know that parents, that is to say, are adults of a society without being vaccinated at 93.5% in the whole population for the first dose and 91% for the second dose. This indicates a significant support for vaccination against COVID-19. This has taken time to have enough vaccines. For the adults, it started in December 2020 and continued. It was really in April, then in May, then in June when we received the great number, we made the great number of vaccinations and then we had time. And when with the children, we had the vaccines at the beginning of the campaign. So I think it's a little different, but we continue to work to make sure that it's easier for parents and for the children. And we will learn good suggestions and, as the Director of the Fraser has just said, we will continue to offer several opportunities for children to be vaccinated. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. See you next week.