 COVID-19 update over first to Minister Adrienne Dix in Vancouver. Thank you very much. My name is Adrienne Dix. I'm BC's Minister of Health. In Victoria is Dr. Bonnie Henry, BC's Provincial Health Officer. I'm honored to be here on the territories of the Musqueam, of the Squamish, of the Slewa Tooth People. Honored to be here on their land. Dr. Henry is on the territory of the Laquangan speaking people, the Sanghis and the Esquimalt First Nations. Today I'm here to provide you an update on the COVID-19 pandemic in British Columbia and to answer your questions and with that it's my honor to introduce Dr. Bonnie Henry. Thank you very much and good afternoon. To start today I want to give an update on the current orders that we have in place, some of which are due to expire. First I would like to apologize for the confusion on the order timing and the adjustments that were required yesterday. The intent was to have the orders in place until I could provide clear direction on orders at today's briefing and I know that was a little bit of an error on our part about having them expire at 1201 versus 1159 tonight. As we know we put these orders in place in December, December 21st and 24th when we saw the wave of Omicron coming at us and we still did not know a lot of the pieces of the puzzle about what this was going to look like. We took measures early because we have learned through these waves of this pandemic that waiting means that our systems can become overwhelmed very, very quickly and particularly when we were seeing how rapidly this strain of the virus was transmitting. Given the current rates of transmission and what we saw from the presentations that I gave on Friday for example and the number of people currently requiring care in hospital which is at the highest level for COVID cases that we have had. I will be extending the current restrictions on events and gatherings through to February 16th at which point we will reassess the need once again to keep any or all of these measures in place. So this will apply to the the closures that we have right now in bars and nightclubs, limitations that we have in restaurants to make sure that we're minimizing the risk of transmission in those settings and the capacity limits the 50 capacity limits in theaters and stadiums etc. In addition the COVID safety plan order remains in place and it is an important tool for workplaces to use and I would like to remind all businesses that this is something that will help us to continue to function and to function through this next few weeks as well. We know and additionally there will be no changes to the vaccine card, the bc vaccine card orders that are in place. We know that this is a very important and effective tool that helps make sure we're minimizing and mitigating risks in those many settings where the vaccine card is in play. I know that many people felt that we were overreacting and I've said this from the very beginning of the pandemic that our challenge and my challenge is to find that balance of making sure we're doing just enough to address the situations we're in and not not allowing our system to be overwhelmed to focus on minimizing the risk of serious illness hospitalization but also minimizing the societal impacts as well and we've had to adjust and we had to adjust in December once again as the virus changed. It changed and we needed to change with it but that is why after looking at the data that we have and presenting that as we did on Friday today I'm taking the cautious step of reopening gyms and exercise facilities with capacity limits and the continued use of the bc vaccine card. These new guidelines have new guidelines have been developed and we've been working very closely with the fitness industry council of Canada and I can't say enough about how responsive they have been to the needs of the fitness industry and the gyms as also looking at the data that we have been working with us to put together new guidelines and these will be in effect with the restart of gyms starting on on January 20th and that will include individual and group fitness being able to resume at fitness centers and gyms across the province. Proof of vaccine will continue of course to be required at all locations and we have limits that include a minimum of seven meter square for every individual for exercise and that's about a 2.5 by 2.5 meters and much of this is based on what we learned when we had our phased restart of gyms and fitness centers in in 2020 and 2021. So we've learned about the measures that are important to help make sure that they can restart safely and still protect people who are most at risk. The spacing requirements applies to people working out on their own whether it's doing weights or on a treadmill but also applies to to group fitness classes to have that unencumbered space around people. There must be enhanced ventilation with no fans or heaters to increase the temperature of the space making sure that we have that important measure to ensure reduction in in virus loads if possible. Looking at pre bookings and time between classes as as those are operationally possible and of course continuing with things like cleaning. In addition masks must be worn at all times except when exercising as we know that that can cause challenges for some people however I will say it is absolutely encouraged during exercise depending on what you're doing for most people given what we know about transmission with omicron right now and must be used at all times by instructors and personal trainers and staff. I think this is a really important measure I really want to thank particularly the owners and operators and staff who've worked in gyms around the province and who recognize that this was another change and very challenging situation with the spread of omicron and they did what we asked to protect their workers and their gym community and I am very grateful that they've taken these measures I know and please know it was a very difficult decision to close gyms and and fitness facilities before the holidays but it did give us that time to make that assessment particularly looking at people who were using these settings and making sure we had additional measures in place that would address what we were seeing and again I just want to say my my profound thanks to the fitness industry council of Canada particularly Sarah Hodgson and Carl Omer who have been working with us all along through this pandemic but were really instrumental in having us develop these safe guidelines for reopening this week. In addition to this order I am also I've also put in a new order which came up yesterday which enabled medical health officers across the province to support school districts in in looking at staff vaccination rates. This was put in place to support the MHOs who are working with their school districts across the province to make those important decisions around the need for vaccine mandates. The first step in this and this is part of the advice that we've been providing to school districts is understanding the vaccination status of school staff and we know that several school districts had challenges in obtaining this important information and the MHOs have been working with a number of districts over the last few months and concerns were expressed from unions and others about the legality of obtaining this information. So this is to make it very clear this also this decision this order also assists MHOs in knowing which schools are most at risk of outbreaks and it's a way of us being able to prioritize and manage and support schools. This order takes that pressure away and makes it very clear that there is a legal basis for this requirement and a standard process for the MHOs when they're working with their school districts to address these issues. So this has been in the works and has been consulted on quite widely over several months and I know in Interior Health in Delta this is an important measure to facilitate what school districts are doing and making their decision around their employees and vaccine mandates. As the data I shared on Friday clearly shows there are a few groups of people who are getting more seriously ill than others as we're moving through this Omicron wave. Primarily it is people who don't have the protection that vaccine offers at even at younger ages. Verily clearly have an increased risk but the second group of people that we're also seeing are people that are over age 70. We know that age remains the single most important risk factor for having severe illness with COVID-19 and Omicron is no different. So regardless of vaccine status even with two doses on board we know that people over age 70 have increased risk. Partly this is because of our immune system not being as responsive as we get older and many older people also have other underlying conditions that put them at risk and the other group that we are seeing who are also still at risk now are people who have underlying immune compromising conditions. So we need to really pay attention. I think there's a narrative around right now that that Omicron is mild and many of us have experiences. We know people who've become sick with it, they've recovered, we've known people as well who have had more serious illness and so we need to be very careful to dismiss this right now. It may be most people are not becoming seriously ill ending up in hospital but with the high rates of transmission there are still lots of people who do get seriously ill and even those people who aren't in hospital this is not an innocuous illness. The data has shown that up until now and even with Omicron about one in ten people will have symptoms that last for 12 weeks or longer. That's a long time to be seriously ill and while this new wave our individual risk may have decreased for many particularly if you're younger, healthy and and vaccinated Omicron can and is still causing serious illness in many. We may not end up in hospital but it can lead to many people being infected leads to a strain on our hospitals at the same time as we're also seeing healthcare workers becoming ill with this strain. It's still a serious issue and we are still in a pandemic as much as we would like to be over it. The one thing I will say and this is born out again and again vaccines are still the single most effective tool that we have that will get us through this wave but also for future waves so I encourage everybody who's eligible whether you're five or 55 or 95 get your vaccines. The first dose and second dose are highly protective in the short term against infection but in the long term from serious infection from hospitalization and that booster dose boosts up that prevention of infection so it does make a difference now and in the future. It is our still our safest and most effective tool. Having said that we all know somebody who's still at risk people who are over age 70 people who have immune compromising conditions going through cancer treatments and we all have these people in our families in our social circles at work we may not even know it so it remains our collective responsibility to pay attention to doing those things that help prevent us from transmitting the virus to others. Things at work and that's what we know will get us through this phase and get us through this whatever this pandemic throws at us next. In terms of workplaces as well you know this is an important process we talked about the COVID safety plans I also want to emphasize that should employees be ill and take sick days they do not require a note from a physician to get back to work or school or daycare or childcare. We also right now there is no need if somebody has a positive antigen test there's no need for a PCR test to confirm that. We know with the rates of transmission we're seeing in our communities and the specificity and the sensitivity of the rapid antigen test that if it's positive then you need to take action to prevent transmission you don't require a negative test to return to work. Yesterday Health Canada approved the use of another tool that will help us in our toolkit and that's Paxlovid an oral treatment that helps prevent more serious illness if it's given to people early on. This is Canada's first oral antiviral treatment for mild to moderate COVID-19 and it's specifically for those individuals at highest risk of developing more severe illness and ending up in hospital. So again it includes those people in our community who are older over age 70 clinically extremely vulnerable, immune compromised and for younger people who have additional medical conditions and don't have the protection of vaccines. For now though we will be receiving a very limited supply. We expect that in the next few week or so we'll get about 4,000 treatment courses and these must be started within five days of symptom onset and that's how they were used in the trials. So we are working with our clinical care advisory team to distribute the treatment where it can be most effective. This is very good news it's not going to change the trajectory of our pandemic right now but it is something that we have another tool to help those people who do get sick who are more risk at ending up in hospital. I also want to say that there are two additional vaccines that continue to be under review by Health Canada. One of them is Metacogo that's a protein subunit vaccine that's made in tobacco plants and the other is Novavax which has also had some very promising both of which have had very promising clinical trials. Both of these have been under review they've been Novavax has been approved for use in a few other countries around the world but has had challenges in terms of scaling up. We don't expect that it will be approved for use or available in Canada. We are hoping it would be sometime in January but it looks like it's more likely to be in February. Metacogo may be as early as the end of January or February. I think that's important for those people who have made that determination that the mRNA vaccines that we have and are holding out for something else. It's not going to be available to help you through this wave but it is an additional option that will be coming we hope in the near future. Finally I want to speak for a moment about some of the misinformation that is spreading out there particularly about vaccines and especially in the changing environment that we have right now. Credible scientific sources for information are vital to making those important decisions for yourself and your family about your health. So I strongly encourage people to not pay attention to many of the things that are spreading on social media and and Facebook and some of these posts. You need to find accurate credible sources of information and that of course starts with your family practitioner, with your with your pediatrician, with your pharmacist and also the VCCDC website which has additional information that we put up there all the time about the vaccines, about vaccine safety, about questions that people may have but also science-based sites such as Science Up First. These are places you can go to help understand where some of these kernels of information that get twisted around happen. There's excellent information on all sorts of topics that are top of the mind for many. One of the most important ones right now is having that confidence to get children 5 to 11 protected from this virus. We're seeing it affecting younger children right now and it's important that we protect them from this infection. It's also lots of information on the booster dose and how well it works on protecting both infection but again longer lasting protection from serious illness and I want to say as well that I am very grateful for the many journalists who've been covering COVID-19 for the last two years who worked hard to make sure that what they are presenting is accurate and based on the factual science. We learn information every day and when things change it can sometimes lead us to believe that we've been wrong about things but really it's about adapting and understanding as we go. So there are a few things that are really I can say unequivocally. Vaccines do not change your DNA. Vaccines do not affect fertility now or in the future. Vaccines do protect you from infection and from serious illness and we know that they are very very safe. Yes every vaccine every medication we have does have the potential for side effects but those are very very low even though we've been monitoring these incredibly carefully over the last few two years well year and a bit since the vaccines have been available. I know there's a lot of concern about the very rare side effect of vaccines that causes inflammation of the heart or the heart muscle or the lining of the heart and again we have seen that that can happen but it's extremely rare post-vaccination. What we have also seen it is much much more common to have that type of inflammatory response in the heart muscles in the blood vessels after infection with COVID even with milder infections and we've seen that in in athletes and others around the world including more recently Alfonso Davies so I would encourage people please find those credible information that answers your questions particularly about vaccines because as we are seeing time and time again they are an important way to get us through this pandemic and to keep people out of the hospital. I think I will leave it at that for today and turn it over to Minister Dix. Thank you very much Dr Henry and I wanted to provide some updates today on on vaccination on surgical postponements the impacts of sickness on health care workers and on the health care system overall as well as the mitigation plans in place to ensure British Columbians continue to receive the health care they need and deserve. In addition I'll be updating on rapid tests that are available in BC and distributed across the province. With respect to immunization I note that 4,458,921 British Columbians have received their first dose of a COVID-19 vaccine. 4,157,150 their second dose and impressively 1,591,506 have received their third or booster dose that over the last week a very significant 383,266 vaccines have been administered in BC which is an extraordinary achievement including 351,571 third or booster doses that of all those eligible in the total population for a COVID-19 vaccine 37% of adults over 18 have received their booster dose and of course a significantly large percentage of those who are actually eligible who've already received their second dose. This is the work of our teams and our vaccine teams across British Columbia has been exceptional I want to note that 122,000 of those doses have been in community pharmacy and to thank with our health care teams and all those working in community pharmacy for really what is an exceptional achievement. With respect to rapid tests to date BC has received 4,859,800 rapid tests and deployed 3,483,014 of these tests to key strategic areas. 563,000 of the current inventory are not suitable for deployment for take away or personal use. They require special equipment administration by trained health care professionals and cannot be broken down or repackaged. These tests will continue to be used at the discretion of medical health officers. That leaves 813,786 tests that are suitable for self-administered use. This week's deliveries and allocations will include an additional 150,000 to replenish supply at acute health care facilities for testing of symptomatic health care workers an additional 96,200 for repackaging and distributing to testing sites across BC. 115,000 more tests for a total of approximately 300,000 are being prepared and delivered to support testing in the K-12 education sector. Over 200,000 will be deployed for use by businesses and organizations as a part of the point of care screening program. Long-term care and assisted living sites will continue to receive additional inventory to replenish their supply consistent with our previous plans. We expect of course more and more rapid tests in the next couple of weeks and we will continue to report on this and act on this consistent with the plan we outlined in detail on December 21st 2021. With that I'd like to talk a little bit about the impact on our health care system where we are with respect to our health care system. As noted we have we'll have today I think in a hospital about 854 people COVID-19 positive cases in hospital in approximately 112 in critical care that's the number of those cases. The total number of people in hospital is of course an important number that we monitor all the time and that number is in terms of our base bed capacity which is 9,229. We have on our base bed capacity 8,778 in patients in BC hospitals that's an occupancy rate of 95.1%. Typically it's more than 100% at this time of year should be said that we also have 2,353 surge beds 507 70 of those are occupied for a total of 24.2% so our our total occupancy across BC hospitals is 9,348 on a base bed of 9,228 and a base and surge bed of of course about 11,582. So that's where we are in terms of our hospitals right now obviously with respect to the impact of the Omicron variant of concern in COVID-19 as well as other sicknesses on our health care workers in health care system and one report as follows. Our health care workers have been performing exceptionally well working very hard under enormous pressure to get us through this pandemic to address the public health emergency that is the overdose public health emergency and to provide all the other services that are needed particularly in a time of the year January when we typically see a significant demand for health care. I am unceasingly thankful for their determination, endurance and skill with the appropriate public health orders in place to slow the transmission of COVID-19. We know still that Omicron is highly transmissible and infecting more British Columbians than ever before and while vaccination remains the best defense it's imperative that people follow public health orders wear a mask and stay home when sick or symptomatic. Health authorities have been closely monitoring sickness levels across health services especially in hospitals long-term care and home support. I can report that from January 10th to 16th 2022 across the province and across all sectors 17,958 health care workers called in sick due to COVID-19 and other illnesses that's all illnesses combined. This is the total number of health care workers who called in sick at any point during the week and does not reflect the number of days they may have called in sick. This includes a total includes 2,973 in Vancouver Coastal Health, 3,069 in Interior Health, 3,317 in Island Health, 827 in Providence Health Care, 1,459 in Northern Health, 4,440 in Fraser Health and 1,873 in the Provincial Health Services Authority and the BC Emergency Health Services combined. Just to put that in context that is less than the number of people who called in sick the previous week January 3rd to 9th. That number which has been updated is 19,976 so that number has gone from 1976 to 17,958. To provide some further context because there was interest in the part of the media and the health authorities where we have comparators back to 2020. I can report the January 10th to 16th, 2022 approximately. The number was 11,572 in those health authorities that's minus v-haw of Vancouver Island Health and Interior Health. The number who called in sick last year was 7,573 and the number in the previous year was just over 8,000. Those previous years were for January 3rd to 9th but that provides some context so it's significantly more although the gap is less than it was last week and so just to again to put that in context certainly that puts significant pressure on our health care system and we're responding to that through a number of measures to address and and ensure that core services are in place and people get the health care they need when they need it. So with that one critical element of that is of course the surgical renewal update and the surgery and the impact on surgeries. So here's the report for this week. Health authorities report 4,322 surgeries were completed from December 19th to December 25th. This is 2,198 more surgeries and the same week pre-pandemic it should be said that that week in 2019 included the both the Christmas and Boxing Day holiday so it's not apples to apples but it is more than then. From January 9th to 15th more recent period health authorities postponed 791 non-urgent scheduled surgeries that's 42 in Fraser Health, 119 in Vancouver Coastal Health, 240 in Interior Health, 355 in Island Health and 35 in the Provincial Health Services Authority. No surgeries were postponed in the Northern Health Authority and so just to put that in context in that week 791 non-urgent scheduled surgeries postponed that number in the weeks of course around April and May 2020 was more than 3000 so it is not the same level of cancellation as it was or of postponement as it was then. Nonetheless it is obviously significant particularly for those whose surgeries have been postponed to say the least cumulatively. From September 5th to January 15th there have been 5,101 surgical postponements due to regional surges of COVID and factors including severe weather patterns. In COVID's first wave as you remember March to May 2020 of the 14,842 patients who wish to proceed with their postponed surgeries 99.6% have now had their surgeries. With guidance from the ministry health authorities have devised temporary mitigation plans as well to maintain safe patient care and the already discussed postponement of some non-urgent scheduled surgeries is part of that. It remains our priority to sustain essential health care services throughout every region of the province where we work together to overcome COVID-19. Of course our goal is to have our health care system operating at 100% everywhere in every facet as soon as possible as we've demonstrated with surgeries in the past it's our intention to do so. In the meantime service changes will vary by health authority and community depending on the present needs and challenges and will be monitored and adjusted accordingly. Health authorities will be providing information bulletins at around 3 o'clock today to describe what is going on in their health authorities in more detail than I am providing here. In Vancouver Coastal and Fraser Health sustaining full staffing continues of course to be a challenge across those regions and makes it difficult to maintain the highest level of care services in some rural communities surgical capacity and specialized programs. Those two health authorities maintain business continuity plans and continually monitor evaluate and respond to staffing challenges. Over the past month temporary measures have been adopted to address immediate requirements as needed. This is included as you'll note from previous rescheduling non-urgent surgeries. Fraser Health has seen a small number of home support visits rescheduled due to staffing challenges. The situation is monitored daily and change is made as needed to minimize service disruptions. Interior health is taking is facing in some ways the most significant challenges not just because of significant COVID-19 rates because of the incredible challenges that the health authority has faced over the last number of months including as everyone knows the heat dome fire firefighters wildfires and floods and other conditions. They are temporarily possible closing inpatient services in Clearwater, Invermere and Lillewet to stabilize the emergency departments in those communities. They're reducing overnight hours at Ashcroft and the Slow Can Health Centre to again stabilize daytime time services in those communities. The barrier and district health centre will be closed to redeploy staff to nearby emergency departments. All non-urgent scheduled surgeries are being rescheduled as noted before and temporary reductions are being implemented at outpatient clinics and allied health services. In Island Health again elective scheduled surgeries were postponed in a majority of hospitals in early January and will continue to be postponed until the end of the month at the three largest sites which is Nanaimo, Vicgeneral and Royal Jubilee Hospital. The remaining sites begin restarting where staffing levels support. A number of ambulatory care services have been slowed down with services maintained for those in greatest need and there's other details around slowdowns across Island Health that will be available in their information bullet. Staffing levels are being adjusted on a day-to-day and shift-to-shift basis and in advance wherever possible to balance risk and help utilize human resources most efficiently across the system. In Northern Health surgical service postponements are planned or ongoing in the coming weeks at the University Hospital of Northern BC a Wrench Memorial Hospital in Hazelton, Berkeley Valley District Hospital in Smithers and at Northwest BC facilities including the Dawson Creek and District Hospital impacting both surgical and ambulatory care procedures as was described happened before Christmas. Several in long-term care staffing at sites across the region is being monitored on a daily basis and there are temporary reductions across Northern Health regions to adult day programs and non-urgent home health services. Temporary reductions are being implemented across Northern Health in some of these areas including laboratory services in some communities and finally situation response teams are in place to support site managers in Hazelton and Burns Lake as both communities are experiencing staffing challenges across all facilities and services and the Provincial Health Services Authority a series of temporary adjustments are being implemented and staff are working diligently to ensure patients and clients continue to get a high level of service and this describes and PHSA was happening in all health authorities which have activated a variety of strategies to mitigate the impact of increased sick time. Some of these strategies include leveraging overtime for staff and redeploying staff to different programs and services based on areas of highest need, centralizing administrative services and deploying administrative staff to reduce staffing demands and where appropriate using virtual health technology to expand capacity. There'll be more information in their bulletin. BC Emergency Health Services is experiencing some delays with repatriation of patients by air transport notably returning patients from Metro Vancouver hospitals to their home health authorities. Delays have occurred to a due to a variety of reasons including overall air ambulance volumes and poor weather. All cases are triaged according to acuity with first priority always being for patients with the most urgent care needs. All of these measures are designed to stabilize our health care system while we continue to battle COVID-19 and the Omicron variant of concern and I understand some of these measures may cause concerns and challenges for patients and we are determined to get services up and back and running in full as soon as possible. We have seen the growth in cases and hospitalizations due to the Omicron variant of concern but mostly and differently in this period in this wave of cases the Omicron wave of cases a significant effect on all of our health care systems on our health care workers and you see that in the numbers of people who are off sick. I think in this moment of the pandemic a time that is the greatest challenge for patients waiting for their surgeries our job all of our job remains constant and we must perform it with the same dedication and drive we did almost two years ago through our first post moment. It's this moment that matters and the difference each of us makes in us. Follow all public health guidance consistently rely on our COVID sense constantly book our vaccination and boosters when invited immediately and protect our children with their pediatric vaccinations diligently and with that we're happy to take your questions. Thank you very much a reminder to reporters on the line please press star 1 to enter the queue you will be limited to one question and one follow-up. First question today goes to Lisa Kordasko Vancouver Sun. Thank you very much good afternoon. Ivan Health has reacted to a shortage of rapid tests in its long-term care facilities by asking its operators to review their current supply of rapid tests with the recommendation that operators prioritize their current supply of rapid tests to ensure that you know they're able to accommodate all essential visitors until further supply and timing of delivery delivery is confirmed. Can you explain why this has occurred and how widespread this shortage of rapid antigen tests are in long-term care homes in BC and can you confirm the supply and timing of the delivery of rapid tests to long-term care homes? I'll start and then I'll turn it over to the minister to talk about some of the supply issues but yes the what we want to do in long-term care is ensure that we are safely allowing those important essential and important visitors in to support residents in long-term care so prioritizing making sure that we have the ability to test people and to look at triaging who you need to test with the rapid tests if they are in short supply. We also know that many more tests are coming in and they're being forwarded to long-term care homes even as we speak so this is a time limited issue that is happening in places across the province but as more and more of the rapid tests are available and we're able to deploy them it will become less and less of an issue and it's an incredibly important thing I've said many times how we do know it is essential that people are able to visit their loved one in long-term care and we have a process for a designated visitor for every resident. Over to minister Dix. Just to say we are receiving a very substantial supply long-term care is the highest priority in that supply and and resources are being distributed if there are short-term concerns I'll happy to look into that Lisa but I think those supplies are going to be in place they're coming in from Canada and we're expecting a number this week and continuing to be distributed so it's a high priority for us and I expect those rapid tests will be distributed where there there may be a an interim supply problem it's good to know I guess what everyone has but I think the supply issue should largely be resolved soon. Lisa do you have a follow-up? Thank you I'd like to ask about the PCR test can explain why BC has not reached its 20,000 tests per day capacity except for one day in December and that's January 16th like there were about 10,000 tests done you know at the same time people are waiting hours in line and some you know not being able to get a PCR test at all so what's happening with that? It has a lot to do with titrating demand and access and so we have been using as we as we've mentioned a number of times supplementing those who who are at lower risk with the rapid tests and those being distributed to people at the testing centres and making sure we have the PCR ability for those who where a PCR test is required for access to treatment and for other issues so it is really prioritizing where we're using that scarce resource and not going up to 20,000 a day does give our lab the ability to process faster so it is finding that that right balance of who needs a test and with I mentioned this a little bit about people returning to work and and the rapid antigen tests in somebody with symptoms right now with the level that we have transmitting if it is a positive test then it it it's it suffices for people who aren't at higher risk of ending up in hospital so we are titrating the use of the PCR tests we don't have to use every one every day we want to make sure that they're available for those people who need them. Next question we go to Richard Zussman Global News. Dr Henry part of the decision today made on gyms was it based on public pressure and concerns from a lot of gym users that it was a crucial part of their mental health and can you explain specifically around the science why it is safer now to enter a gym with record breaking hospitalizations than it is to go to a venue with more than 50 capacity. Yeah so no it wasn't a public pressure so much we worked really closely with the gym industry as I said we've had representatives that have been part of our team understanding this for a long time and they brought the issues with us and walked through them really when we looked at you know I talked about this a little bit on Friday the various different things that we look at when we put in place restrictions and obviously we consider these really carefully I know how important it is to have physical exercise for our mental health or emotional health for people who are in recovery from different injuries etc and the gym is part of that for many many people yoga studios fitness studios those are all part of how people express their their need for wellness as well as for physical activity and I know that too I'm also one of those people that uses it my gym but I will say that when we're at that place we look at the highest risk scenario so there are things that we do there's a population that we have there's a setting there's the the prior history of outbreaks that we've seen and there's transmission and with the demographic that we know that are going to gyms on a regular basis we were seeing a lot of transmission in that age group in December when we needed to look at what restrictions needed to make a difference and so when somebody is exercising vigorously you expel more droplets we know that that's a higher risk activity particularly if it's indoors particularly if there's limited space and we know that there was we have been at a really good point where we were allowed we relaxed the amount of space that was needed for each individual in gyms so we had to adjust because the virus changed and we were seeing it move very rapidly through populations and you saw the trajectory of age groups that it was moving through over the past month so that was the basis for the decision and yes it's it's qualitatively quite different from sitting in a movie theater with a mask on so that is why we took the measures that we did in those settings so seated venues are very different from some place where you're either actively yelling or shouting or dancing or singing so a seated venue where mask wearing is in force where you have space around you we mitigated the risk in those settings by making the capacity 50% so that allows for more space around individuals given what we didn't know yet about omicron so yes what we've seen is this has moved through in the sort of in the community setting and we know now that people who are vaccinated with their two doses and now that age group is all eligible for booster doses as well and the younger age groups that this is very protective particularly for severe illness so we can safely restart with some more capacity limits some of those higher risk settings like our gyms and fitness facilities starting this week given that we know that it is people who are vaccinated that this is an important part of maintaining our overall overall health and wellness and I think kudos to the the fitness and gym communities who've really done a great job at at recognizing and supporting us when this was a challenging time and I know it's been a very challenging time for them and I know that I'm we're all very happy that we can safely get back to going to our our local gym now again Richard do you have a follow-up Dr Henry there continues to be a lot of parents told that they can't attend their daycare if their child was a close contact to a COVID positive person for in some cases 14 10 or 14 days last week you indicated that kids could go back to daycare or school when they're not symptomatic so can you explain where the breakdown is will there be an update is provided on the bccbc website because a lot of the operators are just basing their information on that and you know should families be required to pay for child care at the facility when they're told they can't attend due to a close contact or in some cases because the facility is not operating because the operators are sick yeah so in terms of you know should people have to pay those are not questions that I can answer I know that is all in the the realm of of the the management of the facilities but what I can say is that yes you know through this whole time we have been in through the last two years early childhood educators child care workers have done an amazing job at really managing to care for children safely especially the youngest children who can't be immunized and still can't and who can't necessarily wear masks very effectively either and I really want to share my my gratitude for the sector who's done an amazing job and it has been a challenge as we have changed and we've had to change to to deal with the challenging and different situation that omicron is presenting us so yes those are still the guidelines that were in place as things have transitioned there's been challenges in some places and taking up the new protocols we've been working with the sector very actively over the last couple of weeks as we've updated our understanding about what it means right now as the testing strategies have changed and as we've understood that more and more people particularly who are vaccinated are having milder illness and shorter illnesses so it is a time of transition right now we are working with mcfd and with the child care sector and early childhood educators we've been updating the guidance in partnership with them and this will be coming out in the I know we have a town hall with providers and and childhood child care operators in the next coming days and we'll be working through these scenarios with them so this will settle down it is a time of transition and change in many different areas as we've learned more about really the impact that omicron is having in our community so yes you don't need to and that is a change you don't need to isolate if you've been a contact and you're a healthy child and we need to help walk people through what that's going to look like in the coming days next question bender sadge and ctv hi dr henry i'm just wondering of first of all you can just confirm that sports tournaments weddings funeral gatherings all of that remains as it is now and secondly just want to ask you with regards to this vaccination data for school staff can you explain why it's important to have that order in place and how that information potentially could be used yeah so in terms of just to to make it clear we have never had a prohibitions or not allowed weddings or funerals it's the celebrations of life or the wedding receptions and parties afterwards that have been suspended for now so the wedding itself is absolutely fine so is a funeral we recognize those are important life events that need to go on with with appropriate restrictions in place it's the party part that we've asked that we've put limits on right now and yes the 50 capacity in theaters etc no tournaments continues but the game playing is still and the making sure that that children and adults are able to continue with league sports and games etc continues as well in terms of the order yeah this was something that has been in the works for some time and local mh o's have been working with school districts and it really is it serves two purposes one it gives the mh o's in those school districts an understanding of which schools might be more at risk of having closures because of outbreaks or where there's transmission so we can focus attention on those schools but particularly it's it's to support the school districts in that decision making about mandates as you know i've been very clear that it is the employers who are responsible for making those decisions and in the way that our our school system is set up it is the school districts who are the employers so it does make it complicated that there's 60 different school districts but the mh o's in each of the health authorities in each of the areas are working with each school district to understand risk and there's a list of questions that school districts need to wrestle with to understand whether they need to put a mandate in or not and i know delta has made some decisions and this was particularly to support in interior health where there were a number of school districts that were in negotiations in discussions with their staff and with the mh o's and we walked through what that would look like and whether the mh o's would need to do it on an individual basis and our understanding really was that if we had a provincial standard so an enabling order from me that would allow it to be done in a consistent way with by each mh o as needed in partnership with their school district so it really enables the school district to make it very clear that it is a legal mandate that they are able to ask all staff in that school district to report their vaccination status and that is a really important step for in terms of determining whether they need to have a vaccine mandate in that district or not been nerdy of a follow-up i do um just in regards to the vaccination card i know you said that that order would also be extended and i'm just wondering if you can talk a little bit more about how long you think that might be in place this year and whether there are any places where you've seen transmission or outbreaks that where it may be expanded to cover as well and so we are still talking about where the the vaccine card is some of those issues are still under discussion as you know it's put in place we put it in place in august up until january 31st hoping that we would be in a place where it was no longer needed but that's not the case and it has been shown to be very effective in in ensuring that we mitigate all those risks in those businesses we do still are committed to it to it being those businesses that are discretionary in a sense where people can have alternative choices i want to find that balance of supporting businesses to stay open supporting people to be in an environment that is the safe as possible and it has been very effective in working on that so yes we are looking at extending it to be able to support businesses and support people and having confidence in going to theaters and restaurants and gyms in the future but we have not yet made the final decisions on whether it be expanded or there's some places removed and how long we'll do that for and over to minister dicks just to say really shortly that more than four million people in bc have don't download their bc vaccine card and i want to thank them for their support with this program which is really a central part of our response to the covet 19 pandemic it has been enabling it has allowed and allowed restaurants for example and other so these to stay open in challenging times and i think that the bc vaccine card is not just popular in the discussion or the debate in bc it's popular where it matters just as immunization is important where it matters and having more than four million people with their vaccine card all those of that group over 12 and having the levels of vaccination we have demonstrates the strong support of british colombians for these measures and i think they've been effective and of course thank the business community because they played a role in it and others the nonprofit sector and making sure the vaccine card is used effectively but i think um it's uh been overwhelmingly popular in bc with good reason and i appreciate everyone for being part of the program this question goes to andrea woo global mail hey thank you for taking my question um with the oh sorry what is the optimal amount of time in between a covet 19 infection and getting a booster shot and would bc consider changing the definition of fully vaccinated to be three doses rather than two yeah so there's a there's a bit of back and forth on that but uh in terms of uh the booster shot what we are saying is if you're at least six months from your dose two as long as you're feeling better from your infection then go ahead and get the booster shot and really it is about the future it's not about obviously protecting you from whatever is circulating right now um but it is about giving you that strongest longer lasting protection for whatever comes next because something is going to come next we're going to have to be living with some version of a sars-cov-2 for the next foreseeable future and i expect and hope that it's going to be less and less severe and that will be able to manage it and part of that is you know people getting booster doses to help for longer lasting protection particularly through next year um in in terms of the vaccine card and what we consider fully vaccinated um we are seeing that that two doses that primary series right now is still giving really strong protection for people against severe illness and hospitalization and i have no plans at the moment for changing that one of the things that that is important in determining um you know what we do in terms of the vaccine card and where people are uh able to access uh things is is you know the the equity of availability of vaccine um and not everybody yet has reached that point where they can have a booster dose so it would not be fair to put in restrictions when people are not able to to meet the the criteria for them yet um and i still do believe that we will not need a vaccine card forever but it is an important tool right now as we're in this this really messy transition period with with omicron and um trying to understand what comes next and how we get out of this pandemic so um i don't expect to be adding a third dose or a booster dose to the fully vaccinated in terms of the things like the vaccine card yeah right now Andrea do you have a follow-up yes thank you for that this is for a colleague regarding the order that medical health officers can compel school staff to reveal their vaccination status uh in the past some school districts were told that if they were to implement a vaccine mandate that they would be on their own for paying for any sort of testing regime and they wouldn't have the resources to implement that so if a medical health officer uh did collect vaccination statuses and they determined that a mandate was required would the province provide any additional resources to to help implement this you're misunderstanding the intent of this order it's for the mhos to to work on behalf of the the school district to require the school district to collect this information it's still the employer which is the school district who uh determines whether there's a vaccine mandate needed or not this is an important piece of information for the school district to have and the order makes it very clear that that is a legal requirement for the school district to be able to get that information and to facilitate making those decisions so it's not about the mhos or me requiring an employer to make a mandate it's about facilitating the school districts who are the employers to make the best determination about whether they need to have a vaccine mandate in that school district or not and it's an important piece of information so if the school district determines that they want to have a testing regime then they would have to do that themselves so it's not this order is not around that and you know I think it really shows the importance of the school district making those decisions as the employer because it is not the mh o and public health or me who is able to manage a vaccine mandate program and it is I know challenging that there's 60 different school districts but we are trying to have a very consistent approach to how we support school districts in making those decisions next question goes to Lisa Yusta city news Dr Henry with these new antivirals coming and there was a comment Theresa Tam made yesterday saying that it would go to people who are most at risk and the people who are most at risk are often those who are unvaccinated and that has a lot of people up at arms so I'm wondering if you can talk about the decision the decisions that are made ethically about who gets this and is it fair if someone who's unvaccinated gets it say before someone who is vaccinated but older perhaps with some immune immunity issues someone if you can talk about that yeah these are all really really challenging questions and you know I think the the other thing to put it in perspective is right now there's limited supplies and these ethical discussions become really really important the other thing that is really important that this is a combination Paxilivid is a combination of two antiviral medications one Ritonovir that we've known for a long time it's one that we use in anti-hiv treatment the other is Nirmatrolvir I'm still learning how to say that one which is one that helps block the reproducing of the virus in the in the body and the Ritonovir basically keeps it around and helps it work for longer but there are a lot of drug-drug interactions with these with this combination so it's not an innocuous medication so that's another thing that we're factoring into it and yes we have you know the federal government put together a panel to look at some of these issues and we've been looking at them again with an ethical lens here in British Columbia and what we've put together is what we call a heat map of you know who's most at risk based on things like underlying illness one or two conditions vaccination status and age and it really does the the risk is greatest in older people no matter what age they are older age 80 in particular but over age 70 and people who have immunocompromising condition regardless of vaccination status and regardless of age so that will be our first focus is how do we make sure so there's other limitations that make it a challenge as well it has to be started within five days of onset of illness so you have to have a test to make sure that it is the the correct illness that you're testing that you're treating and so we're putting in place measures to try and get a test to those people who are most at risk and what we have in British Columbia through our clinically extremely vulnerable group as we have identified a group of people who are most at risk regardless of vaccination status we are working through all of these issues about with this limited supply particularly how do we ensure that those people who are most at risk are able to access testing and the drug if needed in the shortest period of time the other really important consideration is where we can use these medications to help preserve prevent people from needing hospital care in communities that where hospital care is is not very accessible and we've had some really terrible outbreaks in some First Nations communities and remote communities in the province so we are working with the First Nations Health Authority and others to look at how we can have rapid access in those communities where we know there's a higher risk of people needing care so yes these drugs have both malnupiravir and paxilavit have been tested in the clinical trials we're all in unvaccinated people and we know that the biggest benefit is those most likely to end up in hospital but there is a there is a whole spectrum of people and we're focusing on how do we identify them earliest Please, do you have a follow-up? I do, Minister Dix you spoke about hospitalizations and when you're listing off all those numbers it certainly sounds like we are at the brink and I'm looking at island health to send a list so I'm wondering if you can talk about like how close we are to the edge and let's say we get 200 more people in hospital can we absorb that or are people moving through fast enough I'm just wondering how much more the system can absorb before you need to open up say the field hospital I don't think the issue leads as a field hospital though we have that capacity the issue is remember and just today we are we have approximately 2,234 vacant beds in our system base and surge the issue is and what makes this period different than past period is the impact of sickness on our staff and I went through those numbers in detail and we're of course happy that there are fewer days lost to sickness or fewer people lost to sickness this week impacted by sickness this week than last week and I would say apples to apples comparison that I gave you earlier is about 7,500 against 11,000 in those health 30s where we had those statistics so that's a significant increase in numbers so that's the issue that we're facing yes there are more people with COVID-19 in the hospital but we are obviously making changes in the system to ensure that to reduce otherwise the need for acute care beds and that's why several weeks ago in our planning we decided to postpone many non-urgent scheduled surgeries it's a very difficult decision to make and there's certainly more capacity than that as I told you compared week to week we cancelled about 25, 2600 fewer scheduled surgeries than we did in the April and May period of 2020 so the bigger challenges really to the health care system are in smaller communities and in services that are separate and apart you can meet some of these challenges with enormous difficulty of course in hospital but you can meet them but where you're more challenges in things such as home support services where it may be a small number of people in a more isolated rural area providing those services if a number of them test positive and have to have to isolate with COVID-19 so the short answer is I think we're taking the steps now to ensure that when British communes need health services urgently they can get them right now and we're ready then to restore any services that have been delayed we've done this before and we've delivered before and we will again so I don't think we're near that point yet but we want to in detail let people know the situation which is that there's a lot more health care workers sick than there are in the normal period in this period of relatively high sickness which is January of any year that number declined in the last week but it's still significantly more than we would normally see and so we're having to take these steps in order to protect essential services and that's what we're doing and that's what we're going to continue to do and twice a week we're going to update you in detail on these although I know sometimes the numbers are challenging to deal with you know and when they come in that volume but we're going to update you in detail to give you a sense of where we are and that's what we did today and that's what we're going to continue to do we have time for one more question we'll go to bell purey cbc hello uh regarding how outbreaks are reported in long-term care last week point gray private hospital said that it had nine people in its care home with COVID who tested positive for COVID six staff and three residents but they said it wasn't an outbreak because the cases weren't related so why aren't unrelated cases reported as an outbreak if there are almost 10 of them and you know shouldn't that information still be made public for the safety of potential visitors and residents and if you could answer in English and French please and this is another one of those areas where we have had to modify and adapt our approaches as the virus has changed so what we are seeing in outbreaks and we've reported as you know I think we're up to 50 some right now both in acute care and in long-term care but we've been working really closely with the long-term care sector and my colleagues who are on the grounds making these decisions and really what we're seeing is there's so much illness out there that we are seeing lots of healthcare workers who work in care homes test positive or have mild symptoms and they are connected to their risks in the community we see a very similar thing particularly in long-term care homes where people are more mobile and outside and there may not be transmission between residents in the facility and we have to balance this very mild illness that we're seeing now because we have such a highly vaccinated population in our care homes both the healthcare workers and the residents so the impact that outbreaks are having is much different than what we were seeing even a few weeks ago with particularly with delta and why we really started ramping up the booster doses in long-term care homes so we are revising our approach to outbreaks because we're finding that the measures that we put in place that have been very strict around COVID outbreaks in long-term care homes are causing more harm than Omicron is at the moment and we need to balance that with healthcare worker being off ill with relatively mild illness again too so those are under transition and it really is about looking at every individual situation looking at where transmission is happening how we can manage to support people who are positive and try and dampen down and prevent transmission within the facility without putting in some of the more draconian measures that have really affected the quality of life for residents and our visitor strategy is part of that making sure that that one visitor per resident is really part of the care team and providing support to residents regardless of how the virus is being transmitted in care homes so on an individual home by home basis those visitors right now who are limited to the one designated visitor and essential visitors they are aware of what is happening in the home and we're trying to titrate the measures to what we're seeing on the ground in terms of these outbreaks right now as we've seen the risk profile changing with Omicron Over to Minister Dix the swine long-term uh continue to be very difficult the fact that an occlusion has a great impact on the life of these people so you have to consider all these questions but that being said there are a lot of occlusions in the province now there are cases of COVID-19 really in the great majority right now right now right now so you have to work with that and protect people as much as possible while when we give to the residents the instructions I don't know in particular because I know people in many of these centres we can go everywhere in the province that even if there is not a declaration of an occlusion if there are cases there are actions that are taken to protect people which is essential we have seen the last wave of COVID-19 and we see it this time I do please Dr. Hendry I'm just going to circle back one more time on the health order about school staff declaring vaccination status do all districts need to gather the vaccination status of all staff now in case a health officer asks for the information or do they have only have to gather that information when asked to provide it and Minister Dix if you could explain the order about school staff vaccination status in French that would be very much appreciated the answer is no this is an order that puts in place the framework for an MHO to use and the consistent information that will be collected if the MHO in consultation with the school district makes the decision that they want to understand this information so not all school districts will are required to do it it is working in partnership with the MHO I know in one school district today they'll be issuing an order the MHO has been working with that school district for some time and has been it's really the genesis of this that there was pushback from the unions about the concern that this was not a lawful ability to require that information so this just makes it really really clear and takes the pressure off if the MHO issues an order under this provisions to the school district it is it is legal and it must be complied with and it will be on a district by district basis in consultation with the MHO Over to minister Dix for French Dix for French Thank you very much Merci beaucoup we'll see you next time