 Good afternoon, my name is Adrian Dix and BC's Minister of Health to my right is Dr. Bonnie Henry BC's provincial health officer This is our COVID-19 briefing for Tuesday, February the 1st We're honored to be here on the territory of the Musqueam of the Squamish of the Slewa tooth first nations and we're honored to be here today on their lands and As you'll be aware, Dr. Henry will be giving a presentation today and so the slides will be available through the BC CDC's website and through government websites After the presentation and with that it's my honor to introduce Dr. Bonnie Henry Thank you very much and good afternoon Thank you for joining us today on the first day of the Lunar New Year and Hopefully that gives us some optimism for our future as well. I want to start off today by talking a little bit about our Treatment update. So as you know two weeks ago Health Canada approved another tool that we have in our toolbox to help us manage this pandemic and that is a medication called paxilivid, which is a combination of two drugs Nermatrilvir and Retonivir and it was given What one of the things that we needed to do was get a better understanding of who would best be suited for this drug here in British Columbia and How we could use it with the limited amounts that we've received to begin with so our BC COVID-19 Therapeutics Committee and very grateful for all the work. They've been doing over this past two years They said about trying to come up with our rational approach to how we're going to use this This is another positive step forward in our COVID-19 journey and the treatment is specifically for people who are at highest risk of having More severe illness and hospitalization and it needs to be started within five days of symptom onset So for that, of course, we need to make sure that we have testing available for people So we've been aligning both the limited supply We have about 4,000 treatment courses of this these medications With our testing strategy as well And I'm very grateful for the infectious disease teams in each of our health authorities We have developed a hub and spoke model so that this medication can be Available through our infectious disease teams and they are able to identify people who are for this very initial supply of medication who are most at risk and who we can get it to in that critical period of time and You will recall to Fridays ago We presented a heat map and we use that information To identify those people in British Columbia who are more at risk of requiring hospital care and We've identified that it is essentially the people who are in our critically extremely vulnerable groups one and two So those are those people who have immune compromising conditions because of medications that they're on because of having had a transplant or undergoing certain cancer therapies So those are the people who will now be have access to this drug The things that we are learning though from this medication is that it is these are conditional recommendations and the this is a very challenging the medication combination Every medication comes with risks and benefits, but this new antiviral combination has some very important what we call contraindications so it can't be used in some cases And it also has some very important drug-drug interactions So unfortunately many of the people who would potentially benefit from this medication take some of those medications that interact with it and Makes it very different from some of the other antivirals. We have like Tama flu for example so people with We have to be mindful of people's kidney function The immune suppressant medications are on anti-coagulants. These are some of the various serious interactions So our teams who are most familiar with using these antiviral drugs particularly Ratonovir, which is a protease inhibitor. It's part of a combination of drugs that we also use for treating people with HIV they will be starting to offer Paxlavid and Two people at the highest risk groups and we'll be reaching out to them through a proactive process of Monitoring our lab data So it is important if you are one of those high-risk people to continue to access lab testing as you Are part of the testing guidelines and along with this we will be posting later today Some of the detailed information for people so they can look at whether they qualify for this medication But also the updated testing guidelines to make sure that people who do qualify for it are able to get a test Quickly and rapidly and I just want to say my thanks again to our infectious disease teams and the health authorities But also to the the teams at the BC renal BC cancer BC transplant because we know that you'll be reaching out and having these discussions with your high-risk patients This of course is is another tool but as I said there's still much that we need to learn about about how to use it and who it can be used in and what the side effects and the risks and benefits are and Most importantly it is used once somebody has been infected and is at risk of having severe enough illness to need hospitalization and We know that the most important thing we can do is prevent infection in the first place and particularly in people who are high risk the importance of vaccination and That is one of the things that reminds us that we need to pay attention to in increasing immunity particular if you are somebody vulnerable and So in that light in mid-January we shared that we were updating how we'll report on Hospitalizations to provide a more fulsome account of everybody who is in hospital with COVID-19 positive test on any given day And we are at the highest levels of people that we've had in hospital in this whole pandemic Hospitalizations are what we call a lagging indicator it takes time and we have had very high levels of transmission in the community for some time now and we have seen this translate into Into hospitalizations most recently and this is where we are Experiencing at the moment So I'm going to walk us through the information that we've done to look at who is in hospital right now when we presented the Updating reporting we talked about the census data So it includes everybody who's in hospital because of COVID-19, whether the COVID-19 is causing respiratory illness Or exacerbation of other underlying conditions like heart disease or lung disease so people who are admitted because of COVID-19 and we're also looking at people who are admitted to hospital with COVID-19 so they're admitted for another reason and they either acquired in hospital or Somebody is screened or tested with either very mild illness or because they've been screened on admission and those are the people who are admitted not because of COVID-19 but with a positive lab test and we need to understand Those two populations to help us understand how we're going to get through this phase So what we have here is a familiar slide of the pandemic to date what we've seen in terms of of hospitalizations and Particularly what we're looking at in the in the last last month, so we've had 63 new people, sorry We've had 706 new people admitted to hospital this week as of the 30th of January the week ending the 30th of January Out of 11,539 new cases as we can see from the blue line It does look like we are at our peak of hospitalizations and this is where we would expect to be Given the modeling that we've been using to help help us understand the trajectory The other thing that we look at of course is by age who is getting admitted In higher rates than others and what we are seeing that it's coming down along all age groups That bump up that we saw in the younger 0 to 19 year age group has leveled off and is also starting to come down So when we look at who is in hospital There's a number of important things to look at one of them is what is the variant of concern? That's causing hospitalization right now So as we can see it takes a bit of time for us to do the whole genome sequencing once somebody's been admitted to hospital to Understand exactly what strain they have, but it's very clear that as we've progressed into January Omicron has been more and more of the cause Related to hospitalization the strain related to hospitalization overtaking Delta although we still have people in hospital With Delta people being admitted because of infections with Delta as well if we look at the Characterizations of people who are hospitalized Using this breakdown between Delta and Omicron We can compare and see what the differences are in what we're seeing and one of the important things we're seeing is that Delta for the most part was very strongly Hospitalization from Delta was much more common in people who were not vaccinated Now with Omicron the unvaccinated are smaller proportion and partly that's because Some of the people a good proportion of people in hospital I'll have that data to show you are people who are admitted for other reasons and have a positive COVID test So it's not COVID that's driving them into hospital The median age is about the same and I think this is something important early on when we were trying to understand If Omicron causes more severe illness than Delta or not We were seeing it more in younger people So it was hard to tell if it was because people were younger and vaccinated or Because it was milder in and of itself We are now seeing that we're in that older age group that is requiring Hospitalization so that gives us some hint We're also seeing that the proportion of people over age 80 is now higher Which gives us a sense as well about two things one is People over age 80 are still at highest risk of having severe illness This is something we've seen all along whether they're vaccinated or not We also know that people over age 80 are much more likely to have other underlying illnesses Which may be a reason why they are admitted to hospital and could be screened for COVID The length of stay that we're seeing which is really important in how we manage our hospital Care right now and the burden of people who are in hospital right now Particularly when we know that health care workers are off with with illness themselves So what we are seeing thankfully is that we continue to see a shorter length this day approximately half the time that people are in hospital with the Omicron compared to Delta and so that does mean that people who have been admitted in December and January are still in hospital And many more of those people would be from Delta That we're in for a longer period of time We also thankfully see a much smaller proportion of people requiring critical care So that is either supplemental oxygen in the ICU or ventilation and other important interventions to keep the circulation and blood system going and We are also thankfully seeing a much lower rate of death in people who are hospitalized about half the rate and now So what does this mean overall? So if we look at our hospital admissions and this is done from detailed chart reviews of 550 people across the province So I had presented two weeks ago some very similar data that came out of Vancouver Coastal We've now done the chart review of the 550 people who were admitted to hospital So they're on admission some of those people are still in hospital today Some of them would have been discharged by now and this is across the province and broken it down by people who were admitted to hospital because of COVID-19 so the reason for admission was because they had respiratory symptoms and or exacerbation of their underlying conditions because of COVID and We see there's 218 about 40% of this Chart review where people who were admitted because of COVID and about 16% additionally required critical care And over the period of time that we looked at in December and January There were non COVID-19 related admissions where the reason for admission was not related to COVID-19 But they had a positive COVID test and that was about 244 or 44% of the cases but when we look at this By breaking it and breaking it down by the variant of concerns that we that we know are causing Infections in hospital we can see that for people with Delta it is primarily people being admitted because of COVID-19 and a much higher portion of those people are requiring critical care and So that's important for us to know this issue of people who are admitted to hospital with other diagnoses and test positive Really is related to what we are seeing in the last few weeks as Omicron has spread so much in the community and we can see that about 60% of admissions that were related to Omicron Were not because of the infection but people who were admitted and tested and found to have a positive test So this is important and for those that we don't yet have the whole genome sequencing It that we see that the path those are more recent cases for the most part the pattern is very similar to what we're seeing with Omicron, so that's telling us as Omicron has spread in the communities we are more likely to pick it up when people are admitted to hospital for other reasons and those other reasons are what keep them in hospital or require Our reasons why they're in for a period of time There is of course still an important about 40% of people who are admissions because of COVID because of their underlying illness and a much smaller proportion compared to people who are admitted with Delta infection are people who require critical care So obviously we want to see well how that breaks down by vaccination status as well And we can see again a different pattern for Delta than for what we see with Omicron So particularly if we were calling it and it was so apparent when you look at this that having at least one dose of Vaccine so this includes people who have one doses two doses or three doses So any vaccine is very highly protective when you had Delta circulating in the community and For people who are unvaccinated you are much more likely to end up with hospital needing hospital care And we'll look at age in a minute and a much higher proportion Required critical care. So this is important as we move to Omicron We see that the incidental cases are much more common in people who are not Vaccinated or sorry who people who have at least one dose of vaccine and you're much less likely to be admitted because of COVID related illness or to require critical care and The pattern that we're seeing in those who we don't yet have the variant of concern is much more similar to Omicron Again, it just shows us the importance and how we're getting through this phase of this pandemic with so much Transmission of Omicron how important it is that vaccination is preventing people from needing hospital care because of their COVID infection The other part that we want to look at is you know is this different by age and the answer for that is again, yes so if you are admitted for COVID you you are much likely to be younger in Delta So Delta is causing more severe infections in younger people and as we've just seen in younger people who are more likely to be Unvaccinated whereas with Omicron in younger people It's much more likely to be an admission for something else where you had a positive screening test for for COVID-19 and Finally just trying to put this all together and determine if if this is If Omicron itself is less virulent than Delta We do see that that seems to be the case with the data that we have that shows that We match everybody and regardless of age of vaccination status of the other Comorbidities you may have or other illnesses and sex and health authority that there's about half as much chance of being of Being hospitalized with Omicron the odds of being hospitalized with Omicron are much less than with with Delta, but Importantly, I mean 1.3% Risk of hospitalization is still very high when you have thousands of people a day who are being infected and we see from this These data that it's incredibly important that we the high levels of vaccination that we have in our communities across the board or Cross age groups and across communities has made the difference in ensuring that our hospitals were not Overwhelmed in this past few weeks So what does this tell us? 90% of these new hospital admissions are Omicron as I mentioned People with Delta stay in hospital longer are more likely to have severe illness and the vast majority of those requiring care in hospital were result of In Delta were a result of actually from COVID today we have far more people in hospital than we've ever had and Many of those people as much as 60 or 70% now Especially younger people are there for other reasons and they've tested positive. And so what this tells us is this is Really important the level of immunity that we have in our community has protected our health care system at this most critical time Even when we've had the numbers of people who needed that hospital care So while it is under severe strain It is the credit of so many who have stepped up and got that protection that our hospitals are coping Even though we're stretched the other Measures that have made a difference and we know that I was intervening early with some of those Measures in our community that reduces the risk of transmission reduces the number of people that we've gone been in contact with So that is has been an important measure as well And we're looking forward to when we can start to Lift some of those measures, but right now it still remains important to do those things that work Knowing that 1.3% of 2,000 people a day or 1500 people a day is still a large number of people who could need hospital care so With the increase in transmission in our communities We've also seen an increase in in people who have coded in our long-term care and seniors assisted living facilities And we've seen that reflected in the numbers of outbreaks that we're seeing and While there is no question that again our seniors and elders in care are being affected We are seeing a difference very similar to what we saw in hospital where the severity of illness for most is far less and This is absolutely because of the very high levels of vaccination and booster doses in residents of long-term care and in staff in Previous surges. We needed to take Blanket measures one size fits all across the province when we had high levels of community transmission to prevent This virus from entering into our long-term care homes Those protocols had impacts themselves and we know that now while some measures continue to apply We are adjusting this outbreak management approach Reflecting very high levels of transmission, but much less Severity for most people because of that high level of protection We have through through vaccination and through short-term protection through people who've been infected now So this one-size-fits-all approach is no longer Applicable and we've updated the guidelines around Management of long-term care and visitors in long-term care and those will be posted on the DCC DC website later today I Will remind people we do have some measures in place that were put in place in December as Omicron was starting to increase and because of all of the Transmission that we're seeing in communities. So this includes things like reducing the numbers of visitors it's important that with the vaccination status of staff and visitors and residents making sure we got booster doses into everybody and Wearing PPE at all times for health care workers and when visitors are in Making sure that they're wearing PPE that they only visit the person that they're there to see But we are also acutely aware of the impact of the extended social isolation that comes with the full closures of long-term care homes and we've been trying to find that balance of minimizing the risk to residents in long-term care minimizing The transmission of the virus as well as finding that balance of having that all-important Contact with our loved ones and making sure that we can have those social interactions that are so important it is important that we continue to have that balance and Doors will be kept open right now That is the way that we've been trying to manage this to allow all residents to have up to two visitors One at all times Regardless of whether there's an outbreak whether there's some COVID in that facility and the community transmission rates So this is one essential visitor about a third of residents of long-term care have an essential designated visitor already But for every resident of long-term care, they can have a Designated visitor so that can be two for some people but a designated visitor for every resident of their choice And yes, you can have a backup in case you can't go but one at a time Making sure that we do have that all-important connection with at least one additional person and for many people two additional people Even if there are cases of COVID in the facility What remains unchanged is that these visitors must be fully vaccinated themselves. That's how we Manage this risk and must continue to wear PPE When it comes to declaring an outbreak we are using criteria approach based on judgment and the scope and severity of the outbreak and there are a number of different factors that medical health officers with our teams of infection control and support for each facility and working with the facility use when a note break When there's transmission within the facility and whether a note break needs to be declared and what measures are in place to try and manage that We also have updated our guidance around timely communication of Outbreaks in cases in long-term care and assisted living homes. So those details will be posted today So our focus continues to be to protect those who are most vulnerable to severe illness Whether it's in the community in long-term care in hospital And that's why we all need to continue to do the measures that we're doing to protect our health care system to make sure we can get through this wave to and To keep our communities open and going as much as possible. It's about finding once again and keeping our balance We know that COVID-19 this virus is going to be with us for some time still But we are progressing through this surge Which means to we can look very soon at starting to gradually ease restrictions in the weeks ahead as we get closer And we've put limits on on some of the the restrictions on events and gatherings that will be coming up for review In the middle of February and we'll look at what we're what where we are in our Journey through this phase by that time as we've done previously It will not be a flick of the switch. It'll be again increasing the dimmer switch a gradual turning of the dial so that we can do this cautiously and not Put people at risk as we're getting closer and closer to the end of this way It is a new lunar year a new month and a time for cautious Optimism, but we still have ways to go on our journey yet And we all need to continue to do our part as we progress through this pandemic together. Thank you Thank you very much, Dr. Henry and I wanted to start by talking about the continuing and extraordinary efforts of our vaccination campaign across BC 10,778,839 doses administered as of last night That's four point four million four hundred and sixty thousand one hundred and thirty first doses four million one hundred and sixty six thousand two hundred and five second doses two million one hundred and fifty two thousand five hundred and four Third doses, which is in this recent period an extraordinary effort I might add in addition to that But we see a very significant number of young people now over 50 percent of children five to 11 I should say who have received their first dose of a COVID-19 vaccine and that that number as of last night Is a hundred and eighty six thousand two hundred and sorry a hundred and two eighty two thousand nine hundred and fifty eight and an additional twelve thousand three hundred with second doses And twenty eight thousand with books second dose appointments. So that process is going on And moving forward really effectively. I think that there's often a discussion about differences in between vaccinated and unvaccinated but what that represents is 93.1 of people Who are have received their first dose immunization of adults who have received their first dose immunization Against COVID-19. So when we talk about divisions, it's 16 people vaccinated for every one person unvaccinated And I think what we see in fact And we've seen in our vaccination kefford from our Our teams of medical professionals of our teams of volunteers of our teams of communities and municipalities who have supported it And of the many and of the millions of people including the more than four million people who uh Have and are using their bc vaccine card Extraordinary amount of consensus in our joint effort and our joint commitment to one another to help us get through this And we see this every day in every way Um across the system we see it with family members Finding different ways to support people in long-term care and the announcements made by dr. Henry Are gratifying for many people in this group. We see it in how we help one another We see it in people Sometimes dropping off meals when people are in isolation to make their lives better. We see it everywhere And I think well, there is a lot of always going to be discussion of divergence and conflict The level of consensus and collective effort here in bc is something of which we should all be very proud And I certainly have in particular I want to provide an update today on Where we are in terms of acute care just not in terms of people in hospital With with the positive test for COVID-19 dr. Henry has been talking about that But um overall in the system as you know, there are 9,229 base beds in our system today 8,776 of those are full. We have 2,353 surge beds across the acute care system Today 582 of those are full. So that's a total of people in in our acute care system that is That is 9,358 So that is above the base bed level well below obviously the base and surge bed level But what it tells you is that our hospitals are very busy providing exceptional care to a lot of people In terms of critical care, we have 510 Base critical care beds and 218 surge beds of the 510 beds for 148 of those are full today of the 218 surge beds 30 of those are full today. So that's a total of 478 people in critical care I want to give a brief update on the impact of sickness on health care workers in the health care system Health authorities obviously continue to closely monitor sickness levels across health services, especially in hospitals Long-term care and home support I can report from january 24th to 30th 17,756 health care workers called in sick That includes 4033 in Fraser health 3456 in interior health 1,656 in northern health 1,773 in the provincial health services authority that includes the bc emergency health services 2,714 in vancouver coastal health 3,406 in island health and 718 in providence health care This is the number of health care workers affected and does not reflect the number of days or shifts They may have called in sick the illness could be due to covet 19 or something else The number of health care workers as you can tell is relatively Unchanged from last week or the week before so the situation remains very challenging very difficult But it is not getting demonstratively better in terms of overall sickness or worse over the last couple of weeks It is staying remarkably in fact similar in terms of the statistics I want to thank everybody working in health care It goes without saying I think but we should say it again and again if we can Who have been working exceptionally hard under enormous pressure to get British Columbians through this pandemic and to provide exceptional services in in communities across bc With respect to rapid tests bc has received now received as of January 31st 2020 10,187,385 rapid tests and deployed 5,927,284 of these tests to key strategic area This leaves a current inventory of 4,260,101 tests 2,658,000 of which we received in the last three days so Since on the weekend and since As you know as we've discussed before 556,896 of these tests are not packaged suitably for takeaway or personal use Leaving 3,703,205 tests that are suitable for self-administered use This week subject to timely delivery from the federal government We will be working to deliver over 1,291,000 test kits as follows 351,000 for repackaging and distribution to COVID test sites across bc to replenish their supply 100,000 to replenish supply in At acute care centers for symptomatic health care workers and health authority programs for example emergency departments 260,000 to support testing of visitors and symptomatic staff in long-term care and symptomatic staff in assisted living 130,000 to support rural remote and indigenous communities 300,000 more tests to support k-12 education As more tests arrive we will continue to push to the areas in greatest need and expand across post-secondary childcare and other areas as identified in the plan that was presented on December 21st 2021 Currently bc and this is a change expects to receive 16,597,515 tests between today february 1st and the middle of february This is an increase from the 15,719,920 that we were expecting as of january 20th and an increase from the number that we provided Last week. This is good news Clearly the supply of tests is substantial But it's also in flux as orders and deliveries get firmed up by the federal government And finally I want to provide our weekly surgical renewal update health authorities reported in the week of january 2nd to january 8th which included A statutory holiday 4,976 surgeries were completed in that week From january 23rd to january 29th health authorities postponed 870 non-urgent scheduled surgeries That's 104 in Fraser health 15 in Vancouver coastal health 572 in interior health 171 in island health 8 in the provincial health services authority No surgeries were postponed in the northern health authority And just to put that in context That's a significant number and it's impacting a lot of people and a lot of families Although it's significantly less when the suspension of non-urgent Scheduled surgeries in the april and may 2020 period of in the first phase the first wave of the pandemic Cumulatively from september 5th to 20 2021 to january 29th 2022 regional surges surges of COVID-19 and factors including severe weather patterns Have caused 6762 surgical postponements As reported there are over a thousand people and there will be today in hospital with COVID There's still a very significant number although less relatively speaking Compared to the total number than before in our intensive care units And we are still losing loved ones to COVID on a daily basis While there is more important progress on other fronts that reflect our hard work to stop the spread We know this and this is something we do together in british columbia And we've done together very effectively. We know our work is not no done We know this too that our actions to slow COVID's current surge Have a direct impact on our health care systems capacity to perform in the many ways we count on it to perform To do the many things we rely on it to do and to deliver the remarkable outcomes We've come to expect from it patients will get their calls to rebook their surgeries Health care workers and teams will get the respite they need from COVID's current push And all of us will share in the relief those achievements bring When we continue to do the work that many that so many are counting on us to continue to do Keep wearing our mask Keep using our physical distance Keep using our COVID sense keep adhering to health orders keep embracing health guidelines keep getting vaccinated in these exceptional numbers And keep protecting our children with their vaccinations and getting our third shots and boosters when it's our turn That's our work And when we do it we make all the difference in the moments that matter And with that we're happy to take your questions As a reminder to reporters on the phone, please press star one to enter the queue You will be limited to one question and one follow-up and i'm just going to give a quick update on one other issue that I Missed my notes on We talked last week and the national advisory committee on immunization came out with recommendations around booster doses for 12 to 17 year olds And they did confirm a six month interval was the interval to be used. They also Confirmed and this is something that we'll be Making sure people have access to later this week that people who similar to adults who have In the 12 to 17 year age group who have clinically Extremely vulnerable have immune compromising conditions and a few other conditions are Should get a third dose as part of your primary series and then a fourth booster dose six months after that So that will affect some people who are immune compromised in that age group And you'll be receiving your invitations for that For other people in the 12 to 17 year age group nasi has recommended The that a booster dose be provided to people who are at high risk and we For a number of conditions and we have those outlined At at six months of age. So that's people with diabetes people with a number of other conditions that Increase the risk of having more severe illness And for others it is in nasi's opinion more of an optional risk benefit analysis that you do yourself So how we will be doing it here in bc after discussion with our bc immunization committee and our Immunization team we will be sending invites to all 12 to 17 year olds With information on the benefits and risks of boosters at your six month interval And you will be have the ability to make that decision and book yourself and we do of course continue To strongly recommend that anybody who has an underlying condition that puts them at risk Does get their booster dose we have seen and we see it in the hospitalization data That it's important for protection not only against infection even from overgrown, but also Really important for longer-term protection against severe illness So i'll leave that at that and then we can start for questions that our first question today will be from bender sojin ctv Please go ahead Dr. Henry i know you said that the information would be up on the website But can you explain a little bit about how the criteria for declaring an outbreak in care homes Is changing what it's going to be and We're hearing that this change may have been made in late december or early january Can you tell us sort of when it goes into effect or when it went into effect and exactly what the new Criteria are So as you know, we we had guidance that it was posted up on our On the vcc dc website and these are public health guidance that mh o's use on a case-by-case basis to make Determination and they're based on the the information and i've talked about this a few times That we have from our our regular respiratory Infection outbreak guidelines in long-term care homes And so they were quite prescriptive about the things that must be done if there was Evidence of transmission within a facility so that included a single positive case in a resident or More than one case in a in a staff person where there was transmission within the facility or potential exposures So that was an important Very sensitive definition that served us well with the serious Illness that we were seeing with multiple Different strains of the virus and particularly before we had Vaccinations and before we had booster doses So we are now seeing it is qualitatively very different in long-term care homes with the omicron And because there's so much spreading in the community We see rates Background rates in long-term care homes as well. So it is much more around a changing situation Whether there's severe illness or more symptomatic illness. We're no longer doing Asymptomatic testing screening of everybody looking at Who's getting the vaccination levels, whether it's more serious whether other Respiratory viruses are calling it. So it has always been at the judgment of the mh o doing the investigation of each of the Of the outbreaks But declaring an outbreak is a little more nuanced now Based on what we're seeing in a highly vaccinated population Both workers visitors and and residents in particular And the measures that we're putting in place In an outbreak are not as extreme as the ones that we had in place and I talked about, you know, overall measures, but Especially outbreak measures. So that's still ensuring that a vaccinated protected visitor can come in for every resident Even during an outbreak so that they get that extra support that they need for example And there's a few other things that are Powdered that as well. And yes, this has been an evolution as we've very similar to the hospital data As we've seen delta Fade away and omicron Causing very mild illness in many cases In both staff and residents Binder, did you have a follow-up? Yeah, I just wanted to ask about the rapid test. It seems like pretty big numbers are coming in now to the province Um, we know people now are turning to facebook groups for instance to try and find out which pharmacies may have them And wondering why they don't have access to some of those rapid tests that are now coming in this month Some people need to know or need to show a positive test for work purposes for taking six days, but Is there a plan to distribute those? rapid tests that are coming in in a more You know where people can just pick them up at testing sites because you know, people want to know whether they have Covid or not Yeah, I'll let the minister take that one So we laid out a very detailed plan Binder on December 21st as to where our priorities were for the use of rapid tests British columbia as you can see by the large numbers coming in To the province are getting as full share of rapid tests 13.5 of the national supply And we're using them in these priority areas. So I think I said Noted that the if you're talking about 10 million rapid tests, that's less than two per person We're using them in priority in in areas such as long-term care acute care to support Our testing sites where they where they're there Schools and post-secondary and some work sites in areas where there's congregate living and others To ensure that people are safe and that is you see in detail today The way those tests are distributed Across the system. So that's what we're doing as we get more we we may be able to extend that more widely But those are going to continue to be the priorities Probably continue to be our health care system continue to be Supporting k-12 education and post-secondary education continue to be to support child care continue to be To support certain workplaces where the risk is highest and there of course a part of today's announcement around visitors in long-term care So that is that utilization as you can tell by the numbers being distributed to those areas this week I think it's about 1.3 million That's a lot of use of rapid tests across those systems of the supply we get The rapid tests we're going to get we're going to use and the only exceptions to that Are the ones that we're drying down more slowly Which are ones that require specialized equipment or a health care worker And so we're going to continue to do that over time and obviously As we get more we'll be able to somewhat widen that but those are going to continue to be the priority areas We laid it out in detail what we're doing and it's not dissimilar to what lots of other jurisdictions are doing as well But this is our priority which is to protect the most vulnerable protect the health care system and to ensure that critical things such as to support critical services for parents and children such as k-12 Education child care and post-secondary education Our next question is from Rob Shaw check. Please go ahead Could I just Get you to walk us through the essential and designated visitor situation again? I guess I find it a little bit confusing if Seniors have Essential visitors now but only one third of them actually have That declared and the concern is that the care home administrators who can decide if a senior's Essential visitor is actually an essential visitor and you've said today During an outbreak under the changes essential visitors can still go in and visit Kind of designated Visitors still going and visit And a designated visitor doesn't have to be approved by the care home administrator Could you just walk through the differences there and what it means for seniors? That's absolutely what it means So we have a process in place already and as we've mentioned about a third of seniors and residents of long-term care Have somebody who needs to be there as part of their care team helps Provide that extra care and those people have been identified already What we are are moving towards and what we have moved towards as I've mentioned since The end of december is making sure that in addition Every single resident at their choice Can designate Somebody to be their visitor and you can have a backup in case somebody's ill or can't come in so Yes, if you have you can have If you have two children one of them can be your essential visitor if they're already designated And you can have another person come in to be your visitor and that's what we want across the board That's what's aligned with what the the representative for seniors or the seniors advocate has has suggested Whether we think it's really important and they yes can come regardless Regardless of the transmission rates in the community regardless of whether there's an outbreak in a facility They will need to be because we know that it's still pretty risky. They'll need to be vaccinated themselves And that's why we're prioritizing long-term care for making sure we can test people with rapid tests as well So those are at the residents choice And every resident is entitled to have their designated visitor who can come at any time And that's in addition to those people who have already been identified as essential visitors Does that make it clear? Rob, did you have a follow-up? Great. Thank you. Yeah, um minister dicks Could I ask you to comment on the victoria woman Who yesterday got a call from nurses at royal jubilee hospital to come and ask her to come feed her 87-year-old mother there for three meals because there wasn't enough staff Apparently the family had to do that again today as well. Is that acceptable? Do we know if other families are being asked to do this? And what happens if a patient doesn't have family who can come in and feed them? Well to the latter question no one's ever denied obviously care or left without being fed and And so that that simply doesn't happen and would not happen In those circumstances what does happen and I can't comment on the case I just just so that everyone understands that regardless of the public comment around the case We can't come up with the information we have which are part of the privacy afforded to people in our health care system So we don't comment on the individual cases What happens and what happens frequently and this is before the pandemic is and now Is visitors frequently help with care either because they want to or because it's uh, They're The patient who's a relative may ask them to or because The care staff think that's a good idea and that frequently happened before and after so it's not an issue of They the Individuals being called in to do that but that it can be a helpful situation For many involves there's no question that there's staffing challenges You saw in the numbers we provided in Vancouver Island health right now But there's also no question that everyone is going to be Fed in that process But sometimes people get asked to come in and help especially when they're providing care around and again This is not about this case and not commenting about the case but and and that I think Happened before the pandemic it happens now and it'll continue to happen. So the issue isn't We're That people aren't going to be fed of course they're going to be fed the question is whether staff ask For a variety of reasons for family members come in and assist and and Often that's a very good thing Sometimes for the family members sometimes certainly for the patient that that happened But in those circumstances would so and not be fed and I think that would probably be obvious to everybody But this is an important question and very appreciative of The family's concern and if there's specific complaint, there's an independent process to review those complaints I encourage people to take it to those processes. They have complaints about the health care system because that's important It's also important to know our care staff And it's been one of the challenges throughout the COVID-19 pandemic in long-term care As we've just discussed in acute care is often families and visitors play a very important role In in supporting the care and the recovery of people in both acute care and long-term care and in other health circumstances, so The short answer is everybody gets fed But this is not unusual that visitors whether they be essential or otherwise Be asked to contribute to that and I I gather Without commenting on it, but from hearing what's been reported in the news That's what happened in this case, but those are the circumstances anyway and And obviously we want to make sure that everybody is well treated so that they're Recovery and the support for whatever brings them to hospital is is well supported in our system Our next question is for Richard dustman global news Dr. Henry Pfizer is now working through the process of getting its vaccine approved for those under the age of five So I think from six months to five years old At what point do you expect to see that vaccine available here in british columbia? And what would your initial thoughts be around people of that age getting the COVID-19 vaccines? So yes, I've been watching that with interest. This was the FDA in the u.s Suggesting that Pfizer start the process of applying for Emergency use authorization, which is slightly different from the process that we have here with health canada The and we've talked about this before That the initial Dosing tests on on children in that age group Indicated a one-tenth dose So slightly different from the pediatric formulation we have right now, but the The immunogenicity studies they did so that's seeing if they give that dose To that age group of children If they have a similar antibody response to what we see in adults that we know is protective So it's what we call a correlate of immunity and what they found was they weren't getting a strong and immune response And partly this is because our immune system develops over time when we're when we're very young and sort of the the ultimate timeframe for a strong immune system is in that sort of Six to to 15 to 20 year age group, which is why you know, we've seen such great benefits from vaccine and And the kids in the that age group and teenagers So the short answer is they are continuing and the fda and others in the us Asked fizer to add a third dose to the protocol for that age group But what they're doing given the rates of transmission They're seeing and the hospitalization rates in younger children in the us The fda has said go ahead and put in the application With the data that you have for the first two doses And then by the time we have the opportunity as we have seen it takes months In many cases to review that data to understand the data and to look at it in detail They should have results of of the third dose part of the study. So it is Looking at ways of starting Immunization programs for younger children in a high risk environment where there's a lot of transmission still in many parts of the country In as the as the continued Testing of how many doses is actually needed as ongoing. So that's kind of complex They as far as I know health canada has not yet taken that approach and we're still waiting for the information from Pfizer and the data on the first two doses and the third dose Having said that, you know, it is important and we have seen young children being affected by covid We've had admissions to hospital in the zero to four age group We've had two young toddlers one toddler one infant who who've died from covid over the course of our pandemic And we know that it can cause severe illness in young ones So it is important that we have a vaccine that can protect especially those highest risk Children in that age group And we'll be looking to health canada to review the safety and effectiveness data As it becomes available here I don't think it will happen in the short term But I do expect that as soon as Pfizer gets the more detailed data They will submit it here and to health canada as well Richard did you have a follow-up? Dr. Henry, I'm receiving a lot of notes from people who are Trying to plan trips outside of the country for Spring break and one of the challenges they are facing is around a potential covid diagnosis because of The limited testing capacity here many of them are not able to get tested as you are aware I'm sure if you have a pcr test confirmed You don't you there are certain rules around travel in terms of getting retested All of this considered would bc Consider providing documentation for those who tested positive on rapid tests to allow For that travel and what conversations have you had with the federal with your federal counterparts around changing some of these confusing Travel protocols that could be prohibitive for people who in bc were never able to get a pcr test So this is not unique to people in bc and yes, there are some I will say that the publicly funded testing system is not for private personal travel like that So no it's not available in our You know pcr tests in our publicly funded system needs to be Focused on the people for whom there it will make a difference in terms of either their care or being going back to work There are some provisions in places I know in private clinics to be able to get a confirmation associated with a rapid test positive At a person's own expense like other travel clinic services that are provided and You know, it's very hard to As you know, there's a trajectory of antibodies that are picked up by these tests So if we're talking out in march somebody who had an infection now Is unlikely to test positive on a pcr test that far out But those are things that are very challenging things and yes, the federal government is reviewing particularly as In the provinces and territories. We've changed our isolation requirements for people who are contacts and for people who are Who test positive and they're not aligned anymore with some of the border measures So we have had ongoing discussions about the border measures and what tests are required when and why And I know they are reviewing those In the next few weeks Our next question today is from lisa cordasco vancouver son. Please go ahead Thank you. I want to talk about the changes to how you are going to adjust outbreak management your management approach In changing When a medical health officer may declare an outbreak Someone say that you know outbreaks should still be declared because then visitors and residents of care homes know And can judge Whether they will continue to go to activities or whether visitors will be continuing to visit Declaring an outbreak just simply tells the public that there is COVID circulating in a care home Um medical health officers from that point on could use their discretion to say yes visits will continue or Activities will continue. Um, is that the approach that you're using and if not If leaving enough to declare an outbreak in a care home How is member how we're members of the public or you know, business or even residents in care homes To actually know that there is a COVID circulating in their facility There's lots of things that are packed into that and it is a little bit The the mHO is not in every facility every day and of the 200 and some that are In our province and it is that community that understands what's going on And yes, we liaise with each individual facility the facilities themselves and our teams in the regional health authorities that include The mHOs it includes infection control. They are in constant contact with the different facilities about what they're seeing So the people what we're seeing now is that yes, there may be a resident who tests positive for for COVID may have mild symptoms But test positive and they are individually isolated in their room We have overall provisions in place so that you only go visit your one person You wear a mask you're tested staff are tested regularly if they have any symptoms They wear PPE all the time So there is measures in place that help reduce the risk of transmission And there are people who are asymptomatic who have this in our community now and that includes in long-term care homes So all of these other things help reduce that risk And if somebody tests positive they know their roommates know and are isolated if they have roommates Their families are notified And they they aren't able to participate in group activities So it is a matter of finding that balance of knowing If there's a few cases, but there's not a lot of transmission happening. You can isolate those individuals very effectively now because so many people are vaccinated and because we have these other measures in place So that's on a home-by-home basis how we're managing right now. And then if there's more transmission that's not that we're not sure who's passing it to who it's more severe illness and we've had that with RSV and we've had it with Delta still causing a couple of infections Then we need to take more additional measures and Give more detailed notification to the broader community But it is trying to find that Disruption of people's life and ability to be with their loved ones Versus risk right now Lisa did you have a follow-up? Yes, I can appreciate that care homes would be taking measures to reduce risk But my question is about the declaration of outbreaks that triggers an actual public warning That's only that um covid is circulating in a care home People can make their own decisions after that but And including medical health officers to decide, you know, what protocols are going to take place in any care home My question is, you know, you're you're abandoning that requirements That people be informed if you don't declare an outbreak So And then not declaring outbreak and giving them all kinds of options Aren't we going to be all over the place? But where an outbreak is and isn't and what's going on and isn't going on Why don't just declare outbreaks and then decide protocols for handling it Leave that to the discretion of medical health officers This is you know, this is what we do In in long-term care homes have done for many many years And it is about finding that balance in that judgment And if there's not influenza influenza covid circulating, we may have cases We may have individual people we may have rooms where there are individuals who have covid There may be a number of staff who have covid who are off and no longer In the facility those don't Constitute circulation within the facility that puts people at risk right now So it is finding that balance in that judgment and we don't need to tell In your 300 bed facility that one person has covid You know, it's finding that balance right now given what we're seeing circulating And it is very much Part of a relationship that we have and a really good relationship now Where people are taking additional measures on a daily basis To make sure that they're protecting themselves and their loved ones and And their their fellow workers in long-term care homes Our next question is for Lisa used us city news. Please go ahead All the information that you've laid out today, Dr. Henry and and talking about you sound a little bit optimistic that by February 16th At least some things are going to be lifting but laying out, you know How it's affecting hospitalizations and ICU are we sort of looking at going the way of Denmark and England? But we're really going to see a large lifting of regulations In the weeks or months to come I think I made it quite clear that we're still on the Ratcheting up the dial versus on and off switches So there's some things that we know are working and give people the ability to do Higher risk activities more safely things like the bc vaccine card these things like some of the higher risk settings having capacity limits So Wearing masks in indoor settings Especially some of the higher risk indoor settings So there are some things that we will need to continue to do for another period of time I do absolutely think that we'll be able to lift them at some point and we'll have no restrictions, but I do think at some point we're going to get to a place where we can Think about having those important life events again in a limited way and gradually increasing that to a place where we can have larger groups of people together for For wedding ceremonies and celebrations of life and birthday parties and all those important things that we've been missing this last few months Lisa did you have a follow-up? I do and this one's probably more for Minister Dix but not sure regarding the rapid test and your response. I think Richard asked the question So you're saying that there's 4.2 million That are around right now 500,000 can't be used And so that's you know, nearly 3 million sitting there So I just I guess people are left scratching their heads why there isn't a process by which more people can have access to them when there's That many That seem to be sitting there when they're just you know people really haven't seen them much at school We think they're starting to trickle in or universities. So is it just that we haven't seen them in Broad numbers at those places where people want to access them and and people are really scratching their heads But why they can't be more broadly accessible when there's this many millions sitting there But I think it just all I had to do that just you know, there's 600,000 children in in K to 12 There's another well, you know, how many staff are in in K to 12 plus post secondary institutions And so, you know 3 million sounds like a lot, but they're also packaged in Packages that they're not 3 million individual packages of tests and that's you know, what three tests for every school child So it's not a lot When you look at it from that perspective so And yes, they are getting into those settings now And many of them just came in in the last couple of days as you know, but I'll let the minister talk to details So you talk about 3 million tests We've had tests in the millions come in in the last three days and what happens is we come in we just we process them And then they go out and I laid out in detail where 1.2 million are going this week So what you're seeing I think is us taking the test when they arrive There's they're not always consistent on their arrival and then distributing to them to the areas of priority and those areas of priority again Or acute care testing centers Long-term care assisted living schools K to 12 schools post secondary child care Workplaces congregate settings and others that are priorities and have been designed as priorities by public health and by those Who are driving the initiative so there's there's none sitting around We get millions come in takes us some days to process them and then they're going out And that's what you're going to see you're going to see a significant increase in that number In the next couple of weeks So the next time I report that will be many millions more arrived and many millions more distributed and so Nothing's waiting around And we're giving priority to those areas Where we can have the biggest impact on the pandemic and those are the areas I've described And that's what we're doing We're getting the tests coming in the millions in a given three day period And then they're also going out in the millions and that will continue to happen So if you take it at a point of time when 4 million tests say arrive one day And you say well, there are 4 million tests Well, those will be going out to those priority areas and you'll be seeing them around the province and and obviously we've been doing Dramatically more rapid testing in the last few weeks as a result of the test we have We have time for one more question. Our final question today is from belpiri cbc. Please go ahead Dr. Henry By the end of this month children five and up will have had time to get both doses of the vaccine So and many of those in that age group have already been exposed to Or have been mildly sick and recovered from all of con so given all of that When do you think school? Might return to normal, you know masking would be optional No social distancing field trips would be allowed and we need to answer in french as well, please Yeah, you know, um one doesn't I'm continually reminded of the Travails of speculating Um, you know, I kind of thought we were in a really good place in in december until omokron hit us And we still are seeing this virus spreading rapidly around the globe. We still see new things coming up every day, whether it's, you know, the The the ba 0.2 in in denmark in the uk and and south africa now, too And we've had some of that here. So There's a whole lot of things that we don't yet know and some of the more Challenging things to implement in schools are the ones that we hope to get rid of first But it will depend on a decreasing circulation rates in our community and our balancing and our health care system So I do think, you know, by the time we get to spring We're going to be in a very different place. I hope at least for a period of time and this is my speculating a little bit With recognizing my optimism bias Uh, but I do think with the level of immunity that we have with the level of protection We have through vaccination with the amount of milder illness and those vaccinated people That gives a boost to your immunity for a period of time as well That we're likely to have a gentler spring and hopefully summer and we will need to prepare ourselves um and all areas for More unknowns come the fall because it is Pretty sure that this virus is going to come back in some form In the fall and hopefully it'll be in a form that is still We still have good protection from the booster doses of vaccine that we've had and that we can manage our health care system We so that The doctor Henry vient to deal is that he is he is possible that not uh Very near In our context, it's about Cactually In a moment we're in a Plus to a million A million at the hospital a million 30 a couple of 40 On this day A total of positivity 19 20 Which is important In the context Present That is to say that it was Detail of three percent At the beginning of the month of December so We're living a period of Difficult movement And I think our teachers Our teachers Administrators our students our parents Fond Extraordinary work in circumstances Of course we want it to go better In the spring and it can Especially during the summer It can And it's more than it can I know that's what That's what we're waiting for The autumn and the next winter And still present new new difficulties at the moment so I think we have to Now rest stable and calm and it's difficult And the work done by everyone in the school system Is extraordinary but difficult And we hope that it will go better But it will not be next week or even next month Bill did you have a follow-up? Dr. Henry I think you said 60 percent of COVID cases in hospitals or among patients admitted for other reasons So how much is that related to the policy of not keeping COVID patients separate putting them in rooms with vaccinated people? How much is that a contributing factor? English and French, please I'm not sure I understand your question. Are you asking whether there's been Transmission in hospital because we put people with a COVID positive test In a room with somebody who's Low risk and COVID negative Right I'm not aware of any transmission So You know what we are seeing is people are being admitted To hospital for surgery Actually where we're seeing it most commonly is surgery People being screened for surgery people being screened at labor and delivery People being screened for mental health and substance use admissions and some of them are testing positive. They are asymptomatic And precautions are put in place to make sure that While the time the period of time that they have A positive test that they aren't Able to transmit it to others But i'm not aware of any Transmission from Having people in a in a room together. I guess Unless you unless i'm missing the question. Sorry Bill did you want to clarify your question? Well, no that I think we've been hearing that COVID positive patients and vaccinated People are in rooms together. So we're just wondering if you've had cases of transmission in those situations Do any of these people who go to hospital for a non-covid reason and end up being positive for COVID? Did they get it there? Yeah, so we have had a number of acute care outbreaks as you see in our outbreak report and that's where somebody was unknown to be To have COVID and it's been transmitted and it's in in a acute care setting But there's been no transmission From a known COVID positive person Being in a placed in a room or ward with other Vaccinated low risk people according to the infection control policy that we talked about a couple of weeks ago I think what we see and this is the difference in the Delta period We Think what we see and this is a difference in the Delta period when you have overall test positivity of three or four percent in the society based on our PCR testing as a sample of the overall Society of people and that goes up to what it's been 24 percent And you're going to see an increased number of people who aren't coming in for code that are coming from other reasons But are also positive for COVID and that's what we're seeing and that's what the numbers reflect The change the the approach to how we treat people in the hospital continues to be the same or possible when people are positive for COVID For COVID-19 it it is They are Cohorted away from the general population It's just not always possible when you've got as we did today 9,300 people in hospital and 1000 and The 30 or so of them are with COVID-19 and that's in different in different hospitals Those numbers of course individual hospitals are different so cohorting is not always possible But it's certainly the direction and Fraser health was making some adjustments to that But what you're seeing is not evidence of what you're talking about What you're seeing is the change in the pandemic from delta to amachron and with that Merci beaucoup. Thank you and until we until the next time. Thank you