 Thank you for joining us. I am joined today by Doctor Bonnie Henry and Minister Adrian Dix in Victoria and Minister Mike Farnworth in Vancouver. As a reminder to reporters on the phone line, please press star one to enter the queue. You are limited to one question and one follow-up. I will now hand it over to Minister Farnworth. Please go ahead. Thank you and good afternoon. I am honoured to be here on the traditional territory, the Musqueam, where we have experienced some of the most damaging flooding in our province's history. Now in partnership with all levels of government, we continue to make headway on our recovery. This is in large part due to the strength and resilience of British Columbians and their local leadership who are supporting each other and taking the challenges head-on. Today I am joined by Minister of Health Adrian Dix and Doctor Bonnie Henry, the provincial health officer, who will be set to our collective safety. The COVID-19 Omicron variant. The province has been monitoring the rapid spread of this variant both here and at home and abroad and the provincial health officer will be announcing further restrictions today to help curb the spread. Our government continues to investigate supports for those who are or may be impacted by these new restrictions. And the provincial COVID-19 working group met today to discuss this very thing. And as Deputy Premier and the Minister of Public Affairs or General, I will be working with ministry staff to ensure that these new measures are properly enforced. Given the increases in cases we are experiencing, we need the public to do everything they can to slow the spread and to avoid any further burden on our health care systems. Compliance with these restrictions is key and it is our collective responsibility. Earlier today, Emergency Management BC and the Minister of Transportation and the Minister of Health and Welfare also issued a news release about upcoming severe winter weather. A series of strong storms will clash with cold arctic air across BC through the holidays. Periods of heavy snow, freezing rain and very cold weather are likely in many parts of BC between now and New Year's Day. We need to be ready to be prepared for extreme freezing temperatures and risks to our still vulnerable highways, especially highways 3, 5 and 99. I urge British Columbians to place close attention to weather forecasts and road closures. Focus on weather alerts for your area from environment and climate change Canada. It is vital that we not only look after ourselves, but after each other as well. Dress for the weather, ensure you and your loved ones have enough food and supplies, check on vulnerable neighbours and above all else, be safe. People experiencing homelessness are especially vulnerable in extreme temperatures. We are making sure the availability of warm, safe places to stay during the cold and wet weather. This winter, the province is providing more than 1,900 temporary shelter spaces and nearly 360 extreme weather shelter spaces. That is a 25% increase in the number of shelter spaces over last year. These emergency shelters supplement more than 2,250 permanent year-round shelter spaces currently open across the province. The extreme weather response to shelter spaces are available when a community issues an extreme weather alert. All communities have issued this alert ahead of the coming cold snap. For everyone, where an extreme weather alert is issued in your community, it is important to dress in layers with a wind and water resistant outer layer, cover as much exposed skin as possible by wearing half scarves and gloves and to stay dry and change out of wet clothing as soon as possible. Again, British Columbians must be mindful of these added challenges in the coming days and if possible, stay home and out of the weather. Lastly, I want to take this opportunity to thank the First Nations and local governments who have been vital in keeping our communities together through both the recent storms and the ongoing pandemic. The work crews who have made tremendous progress working day and night to repair our damaged highways, especially the Koko Hala and the many health care providers who continue to fight COVID-19 day after day here in British Columbia and across the country. With that, I will now pass this update over to Health Minister or over to Dr. Henry. Thank you. Thank you, Minister Farnworth. Now over to you, Dr. Henry. Please go ahead. Thank you very much and good afternoon. It is my honour to be talking to you today from the traditional and unceded territories of the Lekungan-speaking people, the Songhis and the Squimalt First Nations and particularly on this day, the winter solstice where we have our longest night of the year, it is a time to reflect on what we have been through and to also think about where we are going. And that is moving towards the light despite the challenges that we have had over this last few years and that we continue to have. They say that adversity introduces us to ourselves. It has shown that we are strong and we have a strong and we have a strong and we have a strong and we have a strong, resilient and supportive of each other. But our storm of COVID-19 is not yet over. We are in a different boat, but the consequences of not preparing for what is happening now all around us in our global community is just too great. I know on Friday I had conversations, we spoke about the measures that we thought would be sufficient to get us through this, but I can tell you that over this weekend we have spent a lot of time understanding as much as we could about what is happening with this variant, how it is being transmitted in places around the world, and what is happening here in British Columbia. And today I need to announce additional measures. What we are going to talk about today, our new provincial health officer orders that will come into effect on December 22nd and will last until the middle of January. In addition, we will be talking about how our rapid testing program will supplement what we are doing here in British Columbia now, and we will talk about our updated measures in our booster program. As you know, we have seen things change in the last few days. There are still many things we do not yet know about Omicron and its impacts on the health care system and on people in British Columbia and around the world. I have spent quite a bit of time with colleagues talking with experts from around the world and watching what is happening globally. As I mentioned last Friday, we were putting together a puzzle and it still has a lot of spaces and holes, but some things are becoming very clear. One of those is that Omicron is definitely spreading rapidly and is more transmissible than what we have seen with the Delta variants that we have been managing over the last few months. In addition, we are seeing it now rapidly replace Delta as the predominant variant that we are seeing causing illness here in British Columbia and particularly in the areas that have high populace areas that have had low rates in the past little while in Vancouver Coastal and Fraser Health. There are some things that we are seeing a lot of, and one of those is severity of illness, the potential for significant impacts on our hospital system. I don't need to say how fragile and how stretched our health care system is from the community, from long-term care assisted living, into our acute care facilities at all levels. We know that people have been working very hard. Health care workers, whether they are doing case and contact tracing, whether we are working in the immunization clinics in our hospitals, in our long-term care homes. As cases go up, we are stretched more and more. We need to take measures to make sure that we mitigate any impact on our health care system. And over this past weekend, it has become clear that our best case scenario about how Omicron might be different in terms of severity are looking less and less likely. We have seen an increase in hospitalization in places like the UK that are ahead of us in terms of transmission of Omicron. And more recently and closer to home, we have seen this as well in Quebec, which is very concerning. We are seeing the replacement, as I mentioned, of Omicron from Delta. And we are also seeing what we call explosive outbreaks, which are not just at the same time, but also a shortening of the incubation period that we are seeing. So the transmission between generations is coming, is shorter. And we have seen that around the world as well in places like Copenhagen and looking at specific outbreaks in the United States and here in Canada. Those are things that are worrisome to us because it can signal a dramatic impact in a situation like this. And we have seen as well, we have seen increased evidence of immune escape. Basically, this virus is more easily, much more easily able to infect people who have been infected with previous variants of COVID-19. And more easily able to infect people who have been vaccinated. Although it is still a magnitude difference from people who don't have the protection that vaccine offers. But some of the information that we have used to make the decisions about the measures that will be in place today are looking at what we are seeing here in British Columbia and really it is about buying us time to understand and to prepare. The consequences of not slowing things down, of not taking these actions are just too dire. We need to protect our health care system for everybody who needs care. And we have seen as of today that we have even compared to last week. We have seen a rapid takeoff in cases, particularly in Vancouver Coastal where cases have been low for some time and also in Fraser health. We have seen a leveling off in the interior and a rapid increase in island health which has had low cases along the way. We have continued to see decreases in northern health. And we are looking for this to level off as well. We are at the point where we have seen hospitalizations decrease and particularly we are still not seeing yet hospitalizations increased dramatically for those people who are unvaccinated or thankfully in vaccinated cases. This gives us some suggestion of the protection that vaccination gives. Having said that, we know this is a lagging indicator that we are seeing in other jurisdictions that this can also take off quite rapidly. This also reminds us, this slide reminds us that the risk is fundamentally different if you don't have any protection through the immunization that vaccines give us. And we started to see an increase in both vaccinated and unvaccinated cases. As well, I look at the age groups of where we are seeing transmission and no surprise where this transmission is really taking off is in younger people who are more highly connected, they go to work, they have children, there are connections in communities, social connections as well. So 19 to 39 in the 40 to 59 year age group. And of course as we break that down again between those who have protection from vaccination and those who don't yet, the difference between those who are vaccinated and those who are not vaccinated. So what does this tell us? This tells us that Omicron is making a difference in our trajectory of our pandemic now in British Columbia and that we need to take additional actions so that we can manage this and get through yet another wave. So this is the data from our laboratory showing how Omicron is really taking over the world and not far behind Fraser health and Island health as well. And all of this affects the modeling that is now dramatically changed from even what we showed just last week. Our reproductive number is now above one in all regions, although in northern health it still is slightly below one, but trending upwards again. Where we see the most dramatic differences in Vancouver coastal health, and now every case transmits to at least two others. And that leads to propagated more rapidly moving outbreaks. This tells us that the exposure and we are learning about this virus after two years, almost two years. And we know that it is inevitable now that most of us in the province will be exposed at some point. The way this virus is being transmitted, this strain of the virus is being transmitted in communities across the province, it is over time and very likely that all of us will have exposure to it. How it affects us depends on our own actions and what we are doing. And we talked last week about the importance of reducing our social gatherings and the focus on Friday was how to have safer social gatherings. We are now transitioning to reducing those social gatherings to as low as possible for this period of time to try and reduce that risk of exposure until we can flatten and slow down the curve. The orders that we put in place around personal gatherings will remain with the really important caveat that the principle needs to be to keep those numbers as small as possible. Minister Farnworth talks about all of the things that we have been through here in BC over the last few months. I know at this time of the year we need to be with our family, we need to be with our friends, our close friends to support them, to provide support, to get the support, both emotional and physical support that we need. So we are telling people there are things that you need to do right now. You need to keep your groups as small as possible and it needs to be the same group that we are going to meet in another tomorrow and lunch with friends the next day. We need to keep our groups small. We know how to do that. We know how to connect with others in different ways. So pick your group, make it as small as possible and stick with them this holiday season. Find other ways to safely connect with other people in your life, virtually or outside or at a distance. As a serious illness that puts them at risk, then cut back on your social activities even more. We have to protect ourselves with these risks. Third, if you are attending the event, know how many people will be there and stick with your own small group. Keep those groups small. Most of these events should not be happening, but if you need to get together, keep it as small as absolutely possible. I understand the setting you are going to. Is it a large venue with lots of space so that you can more safely gather? Is there ventilation? Is the things you can do to improve the ventilation? And can you meet outdoors instead of indoors? Ensure you have all of the layers of protection in place. Given that people, the space to stay safe, wearing your masks when you are in indoor space, you have to have a distance to people, stay behind barriers, wash your hands, increase ventilation. These are all things that we can do right now. We know that this is a disappointing and discouraging thing to hear at this point in time. People in BC have stepped up. We have done the right thing over and over. We have gotten vaccinated in record numbers. We have small gatherings to do the right thing. But the challenge that we have is this virus doesn't recognize that. What it does, it has changed and so must we. But I know that we can continue to support each other to do this together. So our new public health orders will include a ban on indoor organized gatherings of any size. So that is weddings, wedding receptions, celebratory events, parties, Christmas parties, New Year's parties, whether they are at banquet halls and event spaces, whether they are event in a restaurant or in a private setting. We need to stop those for this period of time. We will be closing bars and nightclubs for this short period of time. We know that those are settings where people are not allowed to go to the bar and nightclubs. Now those are risky settings especially for the demographic that we are talking about where we are seeing widespread transmission. So this does not include pubs and cafes and restaurants. This is specific liquor licenses and will be detailed in the order but it is specific to bars and nightclubs. Gyms, fitness centers and restaurants have been places where transmission events have happened and have spread out to people in the community. So we need to go to the very important remote support for people and some of these, I know my gym does that, the yoga studios, etc. for this period of time. Restaurants will continue to be able to operate with the meal service that we know is important. We know that these seated settings are much less risk but we are going to go back to what worked for us during the last waves of this pandemic. So that is smaller groups. Maximum of six people per table wearing masks. We already put in last week the importance of not having congregation and people coming together having additional space or barriers within restaurants and not moving between tables. And finally, we will also be adding, we had last week put in capacity limits for the larger venues of sports events and theaters and concerts. Now seated events will be reduced to 50% capacity regardless of the venue size. So that includes movie theaters, theaters, arenas, etc. And again, the really important measures that we know help, which is using the BC vaccine card, checking the QR code, enforcing of mask wearing and that additional extra space to give room for people and to ensure that there is enough ventilation support around people. So these will come into effect on December 22nd at midnight and will be in effect until January 18th. And that is very specific. There are a number of things that are happening over this period of time, including support the return safe to schools, the K-12 schools and January 4th. And we are working very closely with our ministry and stakeholder table to support that. And on January 10th is the return to on-campus learning at post-secondary institutions. In addition, this gives us a period of time for us to continue to monitor, to fill in those pieces of the puzzle and to better understand the impact that Omicron is going on in our context in BC, on our healthcare system and making sure that those resources are there for all of us. So this is a summary and overview of the public health orders that have been in place and will continue until at least the middle of January. Supplementing part of this is how do we use the rapid antigen tests and the various different forms that we have here in BC to support us getting through this period of time. I want to really emphasize rapid antigen testing, the point of care testings that we have, these are red lights, not green lights. So having a negative test does not mean that you don't have to pay attention to the gathering limits, to the different measures that we have in place, our layers of protection in the places that you are going. So it doesn't mean you can have a larger gathering. It doesn't mean you don't need to wear your mask. The important thing about point of care tests and the PCR testing is that if they are positive, it tells you that you cannot do those things. It is a red light, not a green light. And it is important that these are used for people who have symptoms to help understand what is causing their symptoms, where that will make a difference. Right now we have a lot of tests that are, want to just have an understanding of whether they have COVID right now. And that is not where these rapid tests are helpful. And it is leading to long lines in our PCR testing, which we absolutely need to support us being able to understand people who have COVID-19. So to date, we have received a little over 3 million point of care tests of a variety of different types of these tests and distributed about 1.2 million across the province in five key areas. We are using quite a few in long-term care and acute care to support staff working in those facilities. We have a very successful program that has helped us in provincial corrections from the very beginning, where people are moving in and out of that facility in a rapid basis. We have also been using these really a lot in our remote First Nations communities in particular to be able to identify if COVID has in a community very quickly, particularly in communities where access to PCR is challenging. We also have been using them for case and contact management, for identifying clusters, for supporting schools where there has been exposure events and outbreaks, supporting post-secondary institutions, supporting workplaces, including we have a lot of testing going on in some of the larger industrial camps, where we have group accommodations, where we have accommodations for temporary farm workers, and those business and organizations have been supported in having a variety of testing strategies where we have been involved with them. In the coming weeks and months, we expect to have additional supply of rapid tests. We are expecting a delivery from Canada of 200,000 pan bio rapid tests. We have also purchased 500,000 of the BTNX tests that we had not yet received with nasal swabs, and the expected delivery of those is by end of December. And Canada has told us that we should expect 84 million of five different types of rapid tests in the country for all provinces and territories, sometime at the end of December. We have also purchased 500,000 of the BTNX tests that we had not yet received with the COVID-19 pandemic, sometime near the end of January. Of these, about 10 million are expected to be at home, lateral flow tests, the ones that we have been planning to receive for some time. And we have requested our share, which is about 13.5% of these. So that leaves us about 11 million different types of tests that we expect will arrive sometime in the middle to end of January. Beyond that, it is still unclear what the ongoing supply will be going forward. So our planning right now between mid-December between now and between when the ongoing supply comes in, or when the additional supply comes in in mid-January, we are currently using about 35,000 tests per week, and we have an inventory of about 2.6 million of different types of tests. We are going to be expanding our ongoing supply of tests. We are going to be expanding our use to support the collection, the testing of people at our testing sites, at health sites, people with symptoms. And that's where the majority of these will be going and are going already to support rapid testing of people with symptoms who are at low risk of having severe illness. And so we can provide advice on how to self manage their illness. We will also deploy them over the next few weeks in higher numbers to long-term care, to all long-term care facilities, to assist in use of staff and testing of visitors, along with the ongoing screening that's happening right now. One of the key considerations that I have, and we have, is to continue to protect the seniors and elders in long-term care. Part of our rationale for the vaccine mandate that we have in place is how important that is. To build those walls to make sure that people who are coming in are not infected and we are going to be adding this additional testing for visitors into long-term care in the coming weeks. We also will continue to use them to support healthcare workers in acute care and facilities around the province. Right now there's rapid access to PCR tests in many of our acute care facilities, particularly our code-bid hospitals. But as this new strain rapidly in the community, there will be healthcare workers who will be exposed and we will be supplementing the PCR program with rapid tests to support staying at work, test-to-stay programs, and investigation of clusters and exposure events. We are also deploying additional 1.2 million of the tests approximately, and this has started already, to remote and rural communities to help detect when Omicron is in, or COVID is in those communities, and in First Nations communities, and are looking at how we can deploy them as well to support vulnerable populations. And part of this is about having a strategy in place for rapid testing and access to treatment. If, as we know, that some of the antiviral treatments, Paxlevid in particular, are under review by Health Canada, Canada has purchased millions of doses of these, and we need to have a plan in place to be able to provide rapid access to those who will benefit from antiviral treatment because it needs to be given within a short period of time. So that's a strategy that we will be making sure we have in place by the time those are approved for use. Currently as well, we have a strategy through our testing to get rapid access to SatrovaMab and some of the other monoclonal antibodies that are still effective against this strain. We will continue to expand our point of care screening program in businesses and organizations as we know that this can, especially as we mentioned, some of the group accommodations to help manage and prevent outbreaks and use by regional medical health officers and our health authorities to again support and manage outbreaks in communities. Once we receive some of the additional testing that we are expecting in mid-January and beyond, we are going to be expanding access to publicly funded tests at additional locations in the community. This is to help look at how we can manage community spread and protect people who are clinically extremely vulnerable in these communities. A large part of what we are doing and our strategy will be to support K-12 students and staff return to school and continuity of in-person learning. And this is where we can support families to be able to have testing after exposures so that children can remain in school. As well, we will be using them to support return to campus for post-secondary education, for students, faculty and staff in residences and expanding the programs that we have had in those areas. And finally, expansion of replenishment for the work that we are doing with rapid tests in long-term care and acute care and in our health care facilities across the province. We will of course continue to monitor the effectiveness and the utility and how we are using these and making sure that we can support their effective use for people who have symptoms and need to understand their need to isolate and manage over the course of the course of the pandemic. And we will be able to manage over the coming months. So we are in a very uncertain time. We will be learning more about what Omicron means for us, the context that it's in. We're reserving our ... we're deploying our rapid tests to supplement the testing so that we can understand how it's moving through our communities and so we can ensure that we have the health care resources to keep our system functioning and there's much that we will learn in the next few weeks. Part of this as well will be the importance of ramping up our boost program as we've talked about and I'll now turn it over to Minister Dix to walk us through that part. Thank you very much, Dr. Henry. I wanted to speak about our booster campaign across BC and indeed our vaccination campaign which is delivered as you know one of the highest rates of vaccination in the world for first and second doses and our effort for children 5 to 11 has now reached I think as of today. Today's numbers are about 107,000 children 5 to 11 have been immunized as well and focus today on booster doses and I want to take you through where we are and some of the increases will be announcing in the number of booster dose given in BC and ministered in BC in the coming days and weeks and months. We announced booster doses for all people in BC 18 and over on October 26. Sometimes I see comparison between one province and another. We announced everyone 18 and over at that time on October 26 would receive a booster dose and that is what's happening. To date, this is as of Sunday night, 727,761 booster or third doses have been administered. We're currently operating at the same time. We're currently operating at a capacity 35% higher than was previously announced was announced on October 26 as we've brought in and are rapidly advancing our pharmacy and health authority clinics. 67% of people age 70 and above have already received their booster doses. Two in three and that number obviously is growing significantly and more than half of people over 65 have already received their booster doses. Not announced, administered in arms. Approximately 65,000 healthcare workers have received their booster and 125,000 clinically vulnerable British Columbians have received their third doses, their booster doses of Sunday. This is a program which will pay dividends for their health and for the healthcare system in the months to come. It is absolutely right to do and it's based on our risk-based rollout that has shown its results in the first and second dose immunization. I just want to make this point about it because our immunization rollout continues to be based on risk with priority given, as we said, to the clinically extremely vulnerable, to long-term care, we've seen its positive impact there, to seniors, to indigenous adults, to healthcare workers and to those who have received two doses of AstraZeneca. And this age-bate rollout will continue at an accelerated pace with the number of appointments that can be guaranteed. What we do in British Columbia is we have a gated system week to week where we send out invitations based on the number of available appointments. And so we go through category by category. So we're not offering appointments to more people in February. We're going week to week to offer appointments based on people's risk. So we're not having people with less risk, but we're not having people with more risk. We're not having people with more risk, but we're seeing a rollout just as you did with first and second doses. So on the left is what's happened up to now, which we increased capacity by 35% over the plan we put in place on October 26th. The priority groups are, as have been named, the total that was projected for January was 730,000 boosters. Originally, we said end of May, but now with the 35% would be completed by end of April. We are adding to that as of today. And the augmentation, which will start in the coming weeks and then in January, we'll see an increase in vaccination capacity by 62% overall through health authority clinic expansion. In addition, pharmacy capacity will increase throughout January as the ramp up there continues. We will also be offering booster program and ensure wait times remain reasonable. We won't be offering them to everyone all at once. We will go through age category by age category based on risk, based on the medical evidence that supports this program. And you'll see in the next slide the difference in January between what we were planning to do and what we will be doing, a very significant increase week to week in the week ending January 30th. You see the difference and significant increase in vaccinations week to week. What have we done to put scenario 2 in place? The Vancouver Convention Center and that represents the capacity of 130,000 shots in January with a start-up of January 5th. And this capacity will serve the entire metro Vancouver area. Fraser health has also secured the Guilford area and others will come in Fraser health. Vancouver Island is securing mass vaccination sites as is IHA and Northern Health will be securing partners to deliver a mobile clinic strategy throughout smaller communities in the north. And we're obviously going to be again working with many of the community partners that have made our vaccination campaign so successful. Just to put in context what's required to put the Vancouver Convention Center in place. It requires 130 immunizers working 12-hour shifts and about 100 non-clinical staff. And that work is happening right now. And so that's the circumstances. You can see a very substantial increase in the number of booster doses for everyone, a continuation of our approach, which is to focus on those who are most at risk first and to move our way down age categories in order to meet that test. I want to bring an update now, which I regularly do, but is a significant update with respect to scheduled surgeries. Schedule surgeries will be postponed, starting scheduled non-urgent surgeries, I should say, will be postponed, starting January 4, 2020, to manage pressures on hospital capacity and also to assist with the redeployment of key staff. Urgent and emergency surgeries will continue. And this is, as we know from our experience in March and April and May of 2020, means that we will be able to reach the range of 3,000 to 3,500 less surgeries a week, allowing our hospital staff to prepare and to treat and support and help COVID-19 patients who will be coming to hospital in larger numbers and as well to support other activities, including immunization. Rescheduling of those appointments will be determined through a monitoring of capacity and the COVID-19 impacts throughout January and on a regional basis. So we will be looking at all of the regions to do so. And so that is what is occurring in order to create both the space, the staff space, to support immunization, but also and mainly to support activities in our hospital and what our expectation is about the increased number of COVID-19 cases and other health demands that will be coming to our acute care hospitals. These steps are very difficult but also necessary. I want to also report out on where we are with respect to the surgical renewal update for the last few months. In the recent period, we reported November 21st to November 27th, 6,673 surgeries. And while surgeries continue around the province from December 12th to 18th, health authorities postponed 92 non-urgent scheduled surgeries. That was one in Fraser Health, five in Vancouver Coastal Health, three in Vancouver Island Health, 77 in Interior Health and six in Northern Health. Cumulatively, from September 5th to December 18th, there were 1,881 surgical postponements. And as has been our commitment all along, each of these patients will get the surgery they need. Clearly, though, the changes we've made in January will challenge us and we will be required to again ramp up surgeries in order to meet that demand and get people the surgeries they need. Our pandemic has challenged us all. Fighting the virus has never been easy. But we all know this. As tired as we are, COVID is not fatigued. We are tired of our lives through the opportunities. We give it. All of us give it. And the response needs to be energized in order to deal with that. This means for all of us making decisions to reduce our social contacts and we need to continue to do so. It means the control we get when we get vaccinated and when we get sent to an invitation to get our boosters to get those vaccinations as well. It's the control we exercise and it's the control we have when we adhere to public health orders, follow public health guidance and use our COVID sense. As we head into the holidays, no matter how we celebrate the special time of year, we can view it with the magic and joy that has always renewed us and those around us and we can do this without giving COVID new strength and purchase. Every time we use the control we have every single time we push back COVID's authority in our lives. We are making a safe and by each of us making a difference for all of us in the moments that matters most. Patients whose surgeries have been postponed these past few weeks and those impacted right now and those who will be impacted in January are dealing with additional anxiety and a challenging time for all of us. We will get you your surgeries. To each of you and your families, you should know this. We delivered surgeries to 99.6 patients whose surgeries were postponed from March to May in 2020. We delivered surgeries to 91.4% of the 3,321 patients whose surgeries were postponed between October 2020 and June 2021. So when we say we will get you your surgeries, when we make that commitment to you, we are giving you our word and we keep our word. I want to thank everyone in British Columbia for their continuing efforts to support the COVID-19 pandemic and we are happy to take your questions. Thank you, Minister Dix. As a reminder to everyone on the phone line, please press star 1, 10 to the queue. You are limited to one question and one follow-up. We will start on the phone line today with Binder Sajan CTV. Hi, Dr. Henry. I'm having a bit of difficulty understanding why you implemented measures on Friday and now these ones again today. I know you spoke about the fact that you have a lot we don't know about the severity of it and the potential to overwhelm hospitals. So that's something that you also spoke about last week. Can you tell us specifically what has changed? Is it about what you are expecting in terms of case numbers or just like the trajectory from the Bantow class? It's a whole variety of things. It was discussions that I've had with colleagues globally, understanding some more of the data that we're looking at. Particularly watching what's happening in the health care system in the UK. Absolutely. Colleagues, discussions with colleagues in Quebec about what's happening there. Some of the new data coming out of Ontario around their reproductive number and of course the data that our modelers have been looking at here. So it's the combination of all of that. We were in a place on Friday where we had been and it's trying to balance these risks and knowing all of the other difficulties that people have gone through. The effect that these things have had on mental health, especially on youth and young people, young adults, knowing what we have been through with everything else that has happened in this province and trying to find something that would allow us to continue these social gatherings. But it became very, very clear on Sunday that we were starting to see that trajectory go up in a way that was inevitable. We were going to have some impact on hospitals. And we have a very fragile healthcare workforce right now. People are so tired. We've had challenges getting people to work in vaccination clinics because it's the same people that work in our case and contact management. We've had people who have the same people that work in our testing centers and we've been running them full on. And as things increase and we start to see more people in needing healthcare, more people needing testing, it's been challenging to keep people, to keep people in our healthcare system. People need a break and they wanted a break. But it became also really clear that if we didn't do something more dramatic, intense right now, that we couldn't recover from it if it continued in the way it was going. This whole narrative that this is milder, that Omicron is only causing milder illness. And we were starting to see that as well in Canada and we were very anxious about that. But there's been data that has shown that that's not necessarily the case. That the fact that if you have two doses of vaccine, then yes, it does show that there's good, strong protection against severe illness, but we still have too many people who don't have that protection right now. Binder, do you have a follow-up? I do, yes, thank you. And I just wanted to ask you, you mentioned the hours-long line-up, some of them are four and a half hour long for COVID testing sites in Metro Vancouver, how is this going to improve this over the holidays? And a lot of this does relate to people not having access to rapid tests. Can you explain a little bit about why other provinces of millions of these tests that they're giving away and we didn't get them like Alberta and Ontario did? Did BC fail to order them? Or was it about how the federal government gave them out? It's a combination of things. But let me be really clear, all of these people don't use the rapid tests. So giving them out to people to where they are sometimes being used to say, can I go on a green light and have a social interaction with a larger group or go to a party, those don't work well. And our strategy has always been to use them where it makes a difference. So I know that many people waiting in line are trying to get a test, not because they have symptoms, but because they are assured that they can go out and socialize or spend time with family and that they don't have COVID. These tests, the PCR testing, has capacity limits. We've seen that in Quebec, we've seen that in Ontario, we've seen that across the country. We have capacity limits on our rapid tests as well and how we have used them and we continue to use them will be to manage people who actually have symptoms of COVID and what they are dealing with to help with their management of their medical condition. So we will continue to do those. They are a limited supply. They always have been and they will be. We don't have globally, there is a limited supply of many of these rapid tests. So they need to be used strategically and that's what we are doing here in BC. Next question is from Lisa Cordesco, Vancouver Sun. I know there will be various closures, barge restaurants and fitness facilities and that kind of thing. Why there are no supports being announced for jobs and business losses? I know that is something that Minister Farnworth and Minister Dix are doing. I don't know if Minister Farnworth you want to go but to deal with the subject first. But as Minister Farnworth said in his statement, our COVID committee met on the day of the pandemic. This morning, Minister Calon is leading this effort and there will be a response to support business in the coming days and you will hear from Minister Calon on that. So yes, we think that some businesses will need support and yes, such a program is being put together. Minister Farnworth, go ahead. Thank you. What Minister Dix said is absolutely correct. The COVID cabinet working group met on the day of the pandemic. This is one of the items that we discussed and there will be more information on the kind of supports available in the coming days and weeks ahead. Lisa, do you have a follow-up? Thank you. I don't like to get back to the question of rapid tests. I'm wondering why you were not more proactive in ordering rapid tests long before now because there is still no plan to distribute them to the people who know whether they have COVID or not before going to a family gathering. Absolutely. And I know in many places, I mean, this is a time of uncertainty and that is the thing that we can control within our own environment. We do not have enough tests and we have never had enough tests in Canada to do that. We look at the model in the UK, for example, where they provide rapid tests for free to people and they provide them for free to people. And on a bi-weekly basis, there is a way of QR code that you can put in if you are positive, although that has limited, it has some challenges and discussions with my colleagues in the UK. That has not stopped the surge in cases that they are seeing. And what we have with the limited supply that we have in Canada and in BC, we need to use them to manage people who have symptoms. And every single test that we gave, if we give them out and we have seen this in some other places, they will be rapidly taken up by people who have the agency to get them. And what we need to do is make sure that we have them to test, to support testing in people who need that test. So that is what we are focusing on right now. Next question is from Richard Zesman, Global News. Dr. Henry, as you are acutely aware, we are focusing on every word that you say. And one of the things here that you said again and again is that social gatherings inside people's homes are where people are at the most risk. So can you explain to me the rationale behind not putting more limits on that? And explaining how this household plus household or up to 10 works and does it matter if someone is coming from somewhere else in the province considering there is no guidance on travel? So our guidance on travel just to be, if you are not immunized, you should not be traveling and you should not be gathering. And it is about your own risk, your own personal risk, this virus is spreading very rapidly, but also the risk you bring if you bring it into another community. We have a lot of travel concerns in this province related to the many things that we need to consider. And COVID is one of those things that we need to consider, but we also, I know, need to spend time to support family members, close friends who have been going through very difficult times. So I trust that people in BC can make those judgments. There are communities that are not wanting visitors right now. And they will be very actively, we have been meeting etiquette from last summer and the summer before, check before you go, make sure that First Nations communities, make sure some of the smaller communities are welcoming visitors right now. Many of them will not, especially with the new risk that we are facing. But if you have family and friends that you need to be with, then do it, but do it safely. The other things that are really important to me, and I've tried to give some guidance that gives people a reasonable approach to look at, I know that some very large families want to have one other household that they have close, that they can support each other, and that's why we've talked about two households. But the real thing is that I'm appealing to people to know what your risk is in your community, in your family, and making sure that you keep your household as close as possible and forego some of those multiple events with multiple different people. So the things that you can do, if you have a family that is, you know, you're four in your household, plus another group of people over, make sure that it is the small group as possible that you need to have together, make sure that you have space for people. And the other thing that you can do with your household gatherings is that we don't wear masks and we get close to each other, and that's important too. So recognizing that if you have people in your household who are at risk of more severe illness, then you need to keep it smaller again. And particularly if you have children who are not yet vaccinated, we're seeing lots of transmission in younger people because of the COVID-19 pandemic. We had lots of innovative ways that people were able to support each other and come together in the last few years. Do you have a follow-up, Richard? I do. Just wondering about booster shots. So in Ontario yesterday, they did in essence three or four times as many vaccines per capita as British Columbia. How could that province be vaccinating so much faster than BC? And why are we not making it a mandatory six months between second and third dose? We're hearing from people, I'm sure you are too, that have waited longer than that and are desperate to get that booster. You know what? Our program has and needs to be and is scaling up to make sure that those who need it most get it first. We have a lot of people that got it first and have the longest interval. So yes, we're working through that interval, we have a catch that people who are at seven and a half months are automatically included no matter what age they are, we're working through these things and we're ramping up to do that. We started it earlier, but we're also in a very different situation than places like Ontario which did not go to that extended time period, six months or longer. So we are working on this, I think we also and you've heard me talk about this last week, we need to make sure that we are giving people the best options that we can and making sure that we are protecting them not just for this variant, but for the next variant and the next variant. So that balance is important and we focused on those people who are more likely to have severe illness and that's really important and we will be younger people, we're seeing most of them have good strong protection against severe illness and that's good too. Some of the data that came out this weekend show that if you have had two doses of vaccine and you do get infected that you also have longer strong protection, kind of like super boost your protection. So we are moving and ramping these up quickly, it's not going to start the spread of this variant that really came out of the blue. It was something that we thought could happen, but the rapid rapidity with which it has replaced Delta around the world has been shocking to many of us who have been following this for a long time, the booster dose program is ramping up quickly, we are expanding things through pharmacies, but it is also limited by our ability to get people out to reposition and we have had to try and balance the importance of case management and contact tracing and the testing program. So there is a lot of challenges, there is not an infinite pool of people out there who can vaccinate even though we have got everybody from paramedics to firefighters to pharmacy techs and nurses and physicians coming back and I am appealing again, we have had a couple of weeks ago, we need you again. Next question. I know we are showing these things get in numbers and other jurisdictions, they did twice as many yesterday and the previous day in Ontario as well. There are different circumstances, I just say over the course of the vaccination program we have had a higher level of vaccination than just about anywhere, I think in the last few weeks, to the credit of the extraordinary people who have managed our immunization program here and also to the people of BC and we started this booster dose campaign and we laid it out in detail earlier than other jurisdictions and we have made extraordinary progress. I mean, 67% over 70 and it is limited only by the fact that I think 92% or 91% of people over 70 have second doses now so we are not going to get to 100% there, that is significant progress so this is a significant ramp up, there has been the last month and there is again today of our booster dose campaign, it is an exceptional campaign and its focus is using the tools we have, including the online tools we have to ensure that people get booster doses first to the ones who are at greatest risk and that is what is happening in BC and you see the course of the pandemic, our immunization campaign has been one of the best in the world certainly and it continues to be that way because it is focused on the risk that people have and we are going to continue to do that and you are going to see it as people get invited week into week to get their immunizations in a shorter period how effective that is so we are ramping up and we are going to get to in a longer period of time to a very large number of immunizations in January well beyond what we had envisioned when we launched the program. Next question is from Sabrina Wong, fair child radio. Hi there ministers and Dr. Henry, thanks for taking my question. You mentioned healthcare workers experiencing burnout at this point in the pandemic, has this affected the work in fighting against this new wave of the pandemic recently? How do I answer that? You know, it is, I think all of us had a collective , here we go again, feeling when we started to see what was coming out of South Africa initially, watching what was happening in the UK, recognizing that it was here and seeing it ramp up. It is hard on all levels. You know, we hold on to it, we hold on to it. It is hard on all levels. We hold on to it. We hold out hope that the vaccination strategy, the fact that people have stepped up and been vaccinated, that people are doing everything that they can to try and protect themselves and their families and their communities here is going to make a difference. But it is, you know, hope is not a strategy. And so it is really challenging as we are looking down the line at the potential of what could happen. So we need to all come together to make sure that we are not just discouraging, yes, we need a break. Yes, people are leaving the healthcare professions because it is so challenging. And when we have things like people protesting at hospitals and protesting at vaccination clinics and threatening healthcare workers, those are the things that make it even more challenging. But we are faced with another crisis that we need to support each other to get through. And healthcare workers are again, and they are providing the very best care and we see the heroism across this province again, whether it is public health, whether it is in our long-term care homes, making sure that we are protecting our seniors and elders, and it is providing care to people every single day in our healthcare system, in the community and in hospitals. So, yeah, we are tired. But we are going to be there and we need everybody to support us in this next wave, too. MODERATOR Sabrina, do you have a follow-up? Yes, I do. Thank you. As we have heard many times, the situation is ever-changing and although we are still in the midst of the pandemic, can you reflect a bit on this past year about the fight against COVID-19? What would you say was a significant learning experience for you this year and what are your hopes and expectations for the upcoming year? Yes, I think that things change and we have to change, too. But the change is stressful. It provokes anxiety. It creates confusion and anxiety in people. And that in itself can make things challenging for us. But I've also shown, you know, that I think we've shown that we can, we have resolved. We can adapt. We can be brave in the face of all of this. And if I think of, you know, the things that I have learned having spent many, many years, decades, looking at pandemics and how we manage and respond to pandemics, is that you have to never be, you can't be definitive about things. Things change. And we have to plan for the potentials that can happen. I think in the summer, we had a very strong indication that we were on a good trajectory with the pandemic, with our opening plan, with the vaccination rates that we had. And then, of course, we started to see Delta come in and change that. So we needed to change. I think that was the biggest challenge that I faced was looking at, okay, we used all the evidence and data that we had, but things were changing. And we needed to take action and we had to re-implement the data, like using the BC vaccine card to support those higher risk settings. So that was one of the biggest changes. You know, we, as we evolve, this rapid change that Omicron has brought on us, just as we were turning the corner of our fourth wave and things were starting to improve, I think we need to look at this with, again, patients and they have to look at this as well. And we need to look at this with patients and trying to understand it and trying to find some ways of helping people find things to do that can protect themselves, knowing that we need to have control within our own environment in this uncertainty. And we are in another uncertain time. There are potentials that will come out of this. One of the things that we're seeing is, as I mentioned, that if we get through this, especially younger people who are vaccinated, who don't have a severe illness and don't end up in hospital, that we have good strong protection. And we know that we're seeing some evidence that that interval between our dose 2 and our booster dose does give good, mature, cell-mediated immune response that may last us for longer. And that may be, this may be, it may be, it may be that we have a severe illness so it becomes endemic. We live with it. We do certain measures like wearing masks in certain situations, making sure at certain times of the year that we're taking extra precautions. We may need booster doses periodically or we may have good strong long-lasting protection from this three dose series that we're having now. And we need to be able to support immunization across the world. So that's the other part that we really need to think about how we manage what we're doing and how we get through this next wave here in BC and then how do we ensure that we're supporting vaccine equity so that we have that level of immunity that protects us from the next Omicron coming, arising around the world. So those are all things that I'm thinking about in BC. And I'm going to start with Dr. Henry. Hi there, Dr. Henry. I'm just kind of piggybacking what you're saying in terms of detecting the next variant and how you guys had to pivot over the course of a few days. In terms of how you identify Omicron, it says that you guys have been doing whole genome sequencing. And I guess I got a few questions about how you can do it more quickly using identify these variants more quickly through snippet testing. Can you explain the process by which you're identifying these variants and is there a potential way to do it more quickly? So there's a couple of things. We have spread up the whole genome sequencing process. So when somebody tests positive, they get that information immediately or in a very short period of time. And then the isolate goes to our whole genome sequencing lab. And what we do do is a rapid screen for certain snips they're called. So single nuclear tide, I forget what the P stands for. But it's a snip. And that helps us identify if specific mutations may be there. And then those ones go on for a couple of days. And then those ones go on for whole genome sequencing. So some parts of the country, they'll report on the S gene deletion, which is one sort of marker, that it could be the omicron variant and they'll report on that because that can be done very rapidly. We're not using that mostly here in BC. We're using some SNP testing, particularly the lab at St. Paul's, and then those go on for a couple of days. We are reporting on the proportion that are confirmed omicron through the whole genome sequencing. And that happens about every two days to three days. Yes, we have a good sense from the lab of which ones are likely to be. And that's why I can tell you that we're probably up to about 50% based on the early, the SNP testing and the S gene deletion test. Do you have a follow-up? Yes. That's good to know. When we see that there's 302 identified cases on Friday, behind the scenes, are you guys aware that the number is actually quite higher? So it's the proportion of tests that screen positive then there are confirmed. And yes, there's a delay. So the number has to be higher. How do I describe this? So yes, that is increasing over time. And the preliminary results show that that's gone up from about 30% of all of the samples tested to that point to now probably about 50% and the numbers are coming out today on that as well. Next question is from Keith Baldrissi, KNW. Hi, Dr. Henry, I'd like to ask you about the sudden surge in COVID-19 cases. Are we following down the path of Ontario, which is hitting 10% in Ontario or in Quebec even higher, where they've got 3500 cases a day, 4500 cases a day in a relatively short period of time. Are they enough over the short term, over the short term to stop us from getting to case numbers we've never heard of before? We're somewhere around 1300 cases, the numbers will be out very soon. And that is the highest level that we've ever had. Our test positivity is going up, it's still lower than that. We had very high test positivity in the north. That's come down, thankfully, but it is going up in the 5% range, I believe, over today. But yes, we're doing lots of testing and at that 5% rate, we're seeing very impressive numbers of people. Kieth, do you have a follow-up? That's good, thank you. Our last question today is from John Hernandez, CBC. Good afternoon. Doctor Henry, will guide us about when to be tested, be changed, soon in BC, the way it is in Ontario. We're already seeing very long lines at testing centres, particularly in Vancouver coastal health. How long will it be before people with even mild and not be tested. Yes, that is something our guidance is changing and we have said if you are mild symptoms particularly if you don't have underlying risk factors and you are vaccinated, then self-isolation and we are developing tools to support that. It is something right now and if I didn't make that clear, let me make that clear right now. There are a number of respiratory viruses that are relating quite widely in some communities as you have seen. If you are vaccinated, you have mild symptoms, self-isolation and self-monitoring and caring for yourself right now are important things that you can do. You don't necessarily need to get a test. That is important. We should not be going for testing if you are asymptomatic right now. If you don't have any symptoms, we need to make sure that we are testing those people where this makes a difference and then the care they get whether they need to be monitored more carefully whether they need more support and so, yes, we are developing those supports and they will be coming out in the next couple of weeks because as the next couple of days, as the cases increase our ability to actually do one-on-one follow-up on a daily basis like we have been doing with every case and with contacts goes down. And we need to redeploy those people to be able to support testing and support immunization programs. So we will be coming out with additional information for people on self-care, on when to go for a test and when to go for medical help. And some of the work that we have been doing at UVic has been along those lines to support people to manage themselves if you are low risk. Do you have a follow-up, John? Do you have a follow-up, John? Is it okay just to get a quick answer in French as well? We'll do it at the end, John. Okay, sounds good. Just a follow-up. Just a quick clarification here. Just in terms of the limits on personal gatherings, are they the same as outlined on Friday? A household plus 10? Or a household plus another household? And can you clarify the rules around funeral services? Are religious last-right ceremonies allowed under these orders with limited numbers of people in attendance? So I have not changed the personal gathering orders. Change, as I've said, is something that creates a lot of more anxiety. But my advice to people now is that that is an absolute maximum. That's to give you some guidance to go with. But right now, make it as small as possible. And if that is three, that is one, within that, make sure that you keep it consistent. So we're not changing the order. What we're doing is giving people guidance and how to work within that. Given everything in people's situations, and I know that some people have already traveled and they're staying with relatives right now. So the guidance is keep it as small as possible. And that's your best protection right now. Funeral services, weddings and religious services within the faith, within a funeral home or a faith centre are not affected by this order. It's the celebration of life. It's the wedding reception afterwards which will need to be postponed for this period of time. I think that we have the numbers today, the number of cases today and on a number, I think, of 16,000 tests which is an important number of tests here in the Bibliothénie. So there will be, of course, we will give advice to everyone to do what needs to be done. If we have a vaccine, if we don't have any symptoms, if we don't have a lot of symptoms, we still have to isolate ourselves and to do it. And we can do it of course without being formally tested. But we will live in a moment where everyone can reduce their personal contact in an important way now . I think it's important to say that we've done a very significant number of tests in the last week. The number of tests that Dr. Henry spoke of, a positive case Dr. Henry spoke of, I think, is on about 16,000 tests that were conducted in the last 24 hours. We're obviously doing more tests. I think it's important to say that we've done a very significant number of tests in the last week. We're also doing more tests. Dramatically increasing vaccinations and creating the space for our health care system to respond to what is going to be a very challenging January. These are things we can do that give us control and give us force. And what we all can do, all of us can do, is to limit the risks for ourselves and for our communities and the ones we love, is to limit personal contacts right now. This is necessary. We understand it's very difficult. This is something that we all can do to deal with this virus and this pandemic that affects us all, every single one of us personally. I encourage everyone to take heart in this moment. There are things that we can do. All of us can do as individuals and health care workers can do and health care systems can do. We will be doing all of those things and more. The season of the year, which is very important, everyone is coming up, to be able to celebrate that season in a way that also ensures that we slow the spread as much as absolutely possible of COVID-19. Thank you very much and we look forward to seeing you soon.