 Good morning, everyone. It's great to be here today on the unceded territory of the Lekwungen speaking people, the Esquimalt and Songhees First Nation. I'm joined here today by Ravi Callon, the Minister of Jobs, Economic Recovery and Innovation in Vancouver, beaming in with technology as Melanie Mark, the Minister of Tourism, Arts, Culture and Sport. And here with me in Victoria is Minister Adrian Dix, Minister of Health, and Dr. Bonnie Henry, our Provincial Health Officer. And we are ready now to put COVID-19 behind us. Of course, that's how we feel, but there's still a way to go yet. Three weeks ago, we announced the map to getting us back to a place where we could be together. Our plan was based on not just dates, but also on data. And we're moving forward confidently based on the numbers when it's safe to do so. That was what we said three weeks ago, and that's what we're here to announce today. Dr. Bonnie Henry's modeling shows that we're on the right path. Case counts are declining, hospitalizations are stabilizing, and vaccines are climbing at a positive rate. What we need to do now is take the next careful steps forward. Tomorrow, we will begin step two of our restart plan. This means we're going to be seeing more people that we care about, visiting more places that we want to go and see, and we'll be safely celebrating the major milestones that we've missed over the past 15 months. Step two ends the current travel restrictions in British Columbia. However, we are advising against non-essential travel from out of province. We want that to remain in place as we watch what other provinces across the country do as they start their restart plans as well. Step two means being able to host a birthday party with up to 50 people in your backyard or in a public outdoor space. It means that it will be safe to go to a movie with some friends, or more importantly we'll be able to do what we haven't been able to do for the past year, and that is watch our local sports teams in action, and that I'm very much looking forward to. Several fundamental layers of protection will remain in place through step two. You're still going to have to wear a mask in indoor public spaces, and current safety measures and protocols for businesses will remain in place until we move to phase three. Personal gatherings inside your home should still remain small for now, and we need to make sure we stick to one household or five people. Now we've come a long way together over the past 15 months. We've had some ups and we've had some downs. There have been some bumps along the way to be sure, and many many people have made extraordinary sacrifices. But I want to be clear. We want to put the pandemic behind us, but we want to make sure we take those tentative steps in a way that brings everybody along. British Columbians are anxious to put COVID behind us, but there are still people that are anxious about reopening. They're concerned about the impact of too fast a return to normal and how that might affect their family, their business, or their community. We believe we're on the right track. We've been following the data, we've been following the science from the beginning. That's why British Columbians had such great success. But as we go forward, we need to remember that you need to get vaccinated. We need to remember that we have to follow public health orders until it's safe to put them behind us. And most importantly, when we reduce our social interactions, we reduce case counts. We reduce the transmissibility of COVID-19. We're on track to meet all of our milestones through the restart plan. I know many people are excited about that, and I understand those that are anxious. But together, we can get to a place where British Columbia can lead the country in economic revival, can continue to be a place where we don't just flick a switch, but we slowly turn the dial back to a normal place for all of us to be as the summer progresses. I know that all of you are anxious to hear from Dr. Henry about the events of the past number of days as we've seen, numbers drop, have we seen the case counts reduced, hospitalizations reduced, and Minister Dix, I'm sure, will talk about the largest vaccination program in BC history, which is just going gangbusters. I'm very excited about that. British Columbians should be as well. So with that, I'll invite Dr. Henry to the microphone to continue with some of the more detailed aspects of moving to step two. Thank you very much, Premier, and good morning. In May, we outlined a four-step restart plan, our restart 2.0, and said then a slow and gradual approach will be taken. This remains the case. We have built in a two-week, in this case, window time or lag between stages that allows us to monitor our progress and ensure we're able to confidently move forward safely. Our progress so far, like the entire pandemic, is a shared effort, a shared effort between public health, between businesses, between every individual here in British Columbia. We can all be proud of what we have achieved over the last few weeks. As I shared late last week, the data shows us that we are in a good position right now. Hospitalizations, outbreaks, clusters, cases in our community are all down. And the minimum threshold that we had set for step two, 65% of adults 18 and over being immunized, has been more than met. We exceeded 75%, which gives us that confidence that we can move forward now. We will continue to monitor through the next incubation period before moving to the next stage. As we said, this step is step one. Sorry, this step is one incubation period or 14 days, so we will be continuing to watch carefully. We will expect to have continued progress moving back where we can get more of our social connections back together. So let me walk through what is changing and what remains the same for step two. I'll go through the orders as of tomorrow. The order on gatherings and events will be amended to allow for indoor personal gatherings of up, sorry, personal gatherings up to 50 people, sorry, outdoor personal gatherings of up to 50 people. These are the people that we know, that we are close to. So we know the risk, we know if they've been immunized, and we know that it's safer outdoors versus indoors. But we will also be increasing the indoor seated gatherings, organized gatherings up to 50 people as well. This means places like movie theaters, live theater, banquet halls, can now safely reopen with COVID safety plans in place. And we can have events of up to 50 people in restaurants. So this is very similar to what we had in place last summer. Indoor faith gatherings will also be increasing with a minimum of 50 people or for a larger place of worship, 10% of that total capacity, whichever number is greater. This means if your location has a capacity for 1000 people, you could have up to 100 people now in an indoor worship service. The outdoor number remains the same for organized gatherings, but you no longer have to be seated. So it has more flexibility to have a small wedding outside, for example. This is a transition phase from step two to step three. When it comes to sports, as the Premier has mentioned, we now can have spectators at outdoor sports. So you can go watch your child's soccer game or baseball game, as I know many, many families have been looking forward to doing. Indoor sports and high intensity fitness can now also resume with COVID safety plans in place. In terms of the food and liquor service premises order, it's now amended to allow for liquor service in restaurants, bars and pubs to be extended until 12am midnight. And as the Premier noted, the Solicitor General has also lifted the non-essential travel ban for travel within the province. And this means we can go visit family or friends across BC and stay for a while and visit in those communities. All other restrictions at events and gatherings in restaurants and workplaces remain in place right now, and we will be working over the next few weeks to transition in those areas as well. But this means indoor personal gatherings in your home remain small up to five people or one other household. We need to continue with our safety plans in workplaces for events, organized gatherings, and masks continue to be important and mandatory in indoor public places. Physical distancing and giving other space is also still required. We need to recognize that not everybody is at the same place right now, and we need to respect their ability to stay away from others right now. Staying home and getting tested if you are sick is incredibly important. And while new cases are much lower, we still do have transmission in our communities and public health will be working with you with every single case to stop transmission as it happens. As well for workplaces, public health is working with WorkSafe BC and we're going to be transitioning from those COVID safety plans that we've been relying on to providing guidance for employers for communicable disease safety plans that you can use to develop site-specific plans as we move away from the need to focus on COVID-19 alone. And these will be ready before we move to the next phase, hopefully on July 1st. With our strong safety plans in place and all of us continuing to use our layers of protection, we can now increase our much needed connections a little bit more. This is a shared effort. This means respecting that those around you may not be moving at the same pace as you, that some people in some communities may not yet be ready to receive visitors or to have gatherings. So check before you go. And that's okay. As we continue to open up, we need to be respectful of people in communities with different comfort levels and different risk levels. And we must also be patient with workers and businesses who are working hard to reopen slowly and safely for everyone. With kindness, compassion, diligence and commitment, we continue to make great strides here in BC. And I am absolutely optimistic about our brighter days ahead. And I want to thank you for all the work that everyone in BC has been doing to get us there. This will be our summer of hope and healing from this pandemic. And we can make the difference in getting there together. And I'd now like to turn it over to Minister Mark. Thank you so much, Dr. Bonnie Henry. I'd like to acknowledge that I'm sending greetings from the traditional territory of the Musqueam, Squamish and Slewa-tooth nations. And it is such a pleasure to be here today for this exciting step forward in our provinces restart. Our tourism, arts and amateur sports sectors were among the hardest hit by the pandemic. The people working in these industries have been profoundly impacted by more than a year of ongoing restrictions and closures. Despite the many hardships, business owners, workers and volunteers have been unwavering in their commitment to protect each other and our communities. Without question, their sacrifices made a difference and helped us to get to where we are today. To move into step two allows people to travel throughout BC, visit a theater and watch their kids and other athletes play sports. As we approach July 21st, which is National Indigenous Day and the first day of summer, I encourage all British Columbians to get out and explore the best of BC. Whether your summer plans include heading out on a vacation, taking in an outdoor performance or cheering on your kids at their tournaments, there is so much to see and do in our province. Destination BC has just launched their Be Open to More summer marketing campaign which has tremendous suggestions on where and how to explore everything BC has to offer. Check out HelloBC to plan your trip today and their Know Before You Go guide which helps visitors ensure the communities they visit are ready to welcome them. Well, it may take time to get back to where we were. Our collective efforts to support BC this summer have never been more important and we are doing everything we can to ensure BC is safe. Many staff at tourism businesses have taken the recently Be Safe program. This Maiden BC safety certificate demonstrates that workers in tourism and hospitality businesses have received training in health and safety best practices and are prioritizing the health of their customers and community. Be Safe shows visitors that BC is a safe place to travel and encourages people to experience new adventures and connect with their province in a different way this summer. I know we're all looking forward to getaways, gatherings and time to recharge. Whether it's watching your kids play sports outside, going to the theater or traveling to new and exciting destinations across BC, we can finally get out and support each other, people, jobs and our economy. I want to express my appreciation and Nisqa took SIEM to everyone working so hard in the people industries. People we know that you have made the sacrifices and efforts and it's made a difference. I want to assure business owners and workers that our province will continue to be a destination of choice. Again, whether you plan, whether your plans include relaxing at the spa, taking in a local show, enjoying authentic indigenous cuisine, using a postponed holiday booking or whale watching on our beautiful waters, the best way we can show our love for BC and tourism businesses is to get out and eat, play, shop, stay. Really, the best thing we can do is plan a week-long getaway instead of a weekend. I want to thank the Tourism Advisory Table, the Industry Engagement Table and everyone in the arts and sports sector for all of your advice to help us get to this really important milestone. Took SIEM and now I'd like to introduce my colleague Minister Callon. Thank you Minister Mark and good afternoon. I'm Ravi Callon, Minister for Jobs, Economic Recovery and Innovation and I'm pleased to be able to join today for this exciting milestone. Just three short weeks ago we entered step one. Immediately you could feel the optimism in communities throughout the province. Many tourism operators, restaurant owners, people in the hospitality sector said the restart plan was welcome news. People were able to get together with friends and family, they were able to travel within their region or visit a local park and have a barbecue. The launch of the restart plan signaled that we can soon do more of the things we love to do with the people we care about. As we enter step two, we will be able to travel through OBC. We can hold outdoor personal gatherings up to 50 people. Live theater, movie theaters will also be open with the same capacity limits and employees can return to work or hold in-person meetings. These are just a few of the new things that we can do with proper safety plans in place. This is great news for BC businesses but we still have we still know that still some businesses are struggling and we'll continue to support them through this economic recovery. We have made half a billion dollars available in direct relief for small businesses and we extended the deadline for the small and medium-sized business recovery grant application to July 2nd. We want to ensure that businesses are heard and supported as we move into the next steps of their restart plan. We have been engaging with business community on step 2 and we'll continue to do that for step 3. Their input has been critical as we work together to gradually reopen the province safely and carefully. Over the last 16 months we have seen businesses innovate and adapt. They have quickly adjusted their operations multiple times over. This pandemic continues to show us there are lessons to be learned. It has shown us that we need to do more to be economically resilient in times of uncertainty and it's shown us that we need to do more to continue to help businesses adapt to the changing markets and conditions. This work is something I'm incredibly passionate about and it's something that we will be focused on as we build a stronger BC. We are well on our way. We have recovered 99% of our pre-pandemic employment jobs and our economy is projected to have strong growth as we recover but together there is so much more to do. As we begin to venture out more I encourage you to visit your local businesses, shop local, buy BC. We have whether it's lunch with a few friends at your favorite local restaurant or go to a spin class that you've been waiting for for a while. Every dollar you spend at BC businesses helps our economy recover and supports workers and families. Together we will build a brighter future with a strong sustainable economy for everyone. I would now like to invite up Minister Dix to say a few words. Thank you very much Mr. Calaud and Premier Dr Henry. Obviously today is a good day. Three weeks ago on May the 25th we said that we were moving to step one and changes were made and it was required that we follow the data and what has happened since then. Well first of all a lot of people got vaccinated. This extraordinary public health effort that's involved volunteers, communities, other workers and mostly doctors and nurses and health sciences professionals, ambulance paramedics and firefighters and many more who have been involved in this effort. Over 4 million immunizations across British Columbia since the beginning of the campaign 3.4 million, more than 3.4 million first doses, more than 600,000 second doses. In the past week the week ending on Saturday 408,724 doses in a week and again at the end of this week we'll have used the vaccine we have. It's an extraordinary organization and I am so grateful to everyone involved and to British Columbians who have come and get vaccinated and vaccinated. Secondly we said that this was going to be a step by step process and it is that we weren't going to make further changes until this week and we haven't. We've gone step by step, we've followed the evidence, we've seen the decline in hospitalization, the decline in people in critical care, the decline in case counts and the increase in levels of vaccination. This needs to continue to be our path. Over the next couple of weeks that means two things. One, those who have not been vaccinated need to register and get their dose of COVID-19 vaccine. It is critically important that we continue to do so, that we continue to register and that's 1-833-838-2323 or online at our get vaccinated website. It is critical that we continue the momentum. And secondly that we take a step by step approach to the easing of restrictions and that is precisely what Dr. Henry has presented today. That we continue to care for one another, continue to be safe. It is this step by step approach, prudent, serious, gradual that will lead to success and that is what we promised on May the 25th. What we've all done together to achieve in the intervening period and we must continue to work on now. I want to thank everyone in British Columbia for their involvement in this because this has truly been a team effort. Today's achievement has been created by each of us and is shared by all of us and its message is clear. Continuing to work together will bring us all back together and will define the future that remains ours to build. Thank you very much and I'm honored to introduce the Premier to take questions. Thank you Adrian, Melanie, Rabi and Dr. Henry. It is truly a very exciting day for all British Columbians and as Minister Dick said, we all did this together and we all have to keep on the same track if we're going to get to stage three or step three by Canada Day and I'm confident that if British Columbians follow the guidelines, British Columbians register for vaccines will be good to go. But let's take it a step at a time as Dr. Henry has advised us repeatedly the incubation period is critically important and we need to monitor over the next couple of weeks how these new steps are affecting our public health outcomes and we're going to do that faithfully and diligently and I believe that's what British Columbians want to see and with that I'm happy to take any questions you may have. As a reminder to reporters on the phone line please press star one to enter the queue. You're limited to one question and one follow up only. First question today is from Justine Hunter Globe and Mail. Thank you. Boris Johnson just announced the four-week play to the lifting of all restrictions in England because of the Delta variant and we are a little behind the UK in this pandemic. I'm just wondering you can walk us through how we're going to prepare for that monitoring the Delta variant and what it might do to the reopening here. Thanks Justine. I certainly we're focused on how we will address issues here in British Columbia and we've been addressing those issues with guidance from Dr Henry so I'll ask her to comment on the Delta variant and how that's affecting our activity in British Columbia. Thank you and yes that is obviously a concern. All of the strains of the virus that we've seen circulating are ones that are are ones that we've been following carefully so there's a couple of things. We are going back as we have been all along to making sure that we have strong resources to continue to follow every single case of people who are infected with COVID-19 here in BC and we have that so the testing tracing tracking that we've been doing all along is it continues to be an important part of how we can reopen safely and the second part of it is actually knowing exactly what strains are are circulating in the community and to that end I announced last week a couple weeks ago that we have started doing whole genome sequencing on every single case and we have the capacity now at our lab at the VCCDC to do a whole genome sequencing rapidly on every case and as case numbers come down that makes it a lot easier for us to do so we are monitoring really carefully and we have had some of the Delta variant particularly there is a long-term care home where we've had an outbreak and we've seen it being transmitted in a couple of areas in the province but the same measures that we take to reduce transmission from any of the strains of the virus work against this variant as well the other thing that we have going for us is if is the fact that we have increased the level of protection from immunization across the board so we are in a little bit of a different place than the UK for example where we have very high rates even in young people so a lot of transmission that they're seeing right now in the UK is in people in their teens and 20s and 30s and we have very high immunization rates in those age groups already and we need to continue to make those higher of course but that puts us in a slightly different position in terms of the amount of people who are protected and the age groups are protected and so we're not yet and obviously we'll continue to watch but we're not seeing ongoing transmission and taking off of that strain versus any other strain right now but obviously this is something we'll be watching carefully in the data in the next few weeks for sure. Hello Justine. Yes thank you I just wondering Dr. Henry if you can talk about how important it is to have that booster shot in terms of protection from the Delta variant I know this sort of this is still emerging but what we understand around the difference of having that second shot and whether whether it's more protective. We do know from studies in a small number of people that if you're exposed to that variant that it's still a little bit unclear whether it it evades the the antibodies we have from vaccine or if it's the fact that it is just much more transmissible so it is hard to know what we have seen with the vaccine effectiveness studies we've done here in BC and continue to do under the VCCDC is that our that vaccine is working at preventing all of the strains of virus that we're seeing circulating in British Columbia so we'll continue to watch that as you know mostly we had the the alpha and the gamma so the the p1 and the b1.17 and the vaccine was effective in older people against those variants as well so that's important to to know and that will continue to watch and what we've also seen is that globally with the number of different studies it's shown that if you have a slightly longer interval you're you get a stronger and longer lasting protection so we don't want to to reduce that interval too much so that we have longer lasting protection going through next fall so we are finding that balance but it is incredibly important as you mentioned to get that second dose as soon as your eight weeks is there and we now have more vaccine coming we'll be able to do that to make sure that people do get uh fully immunized as soon as we can next question is from Les Lane times colonist well thank you doctor Henry the Olympic basketball qualifying tournament victoria starts in late step two which is no wind or spectators and then runs through the target date for moving to step three which is limited indoor spectators does that mean no spectators for the two late june game days and can you confirm that there would be limited spectators for the three jala games i can confirm either of those at the moment we are working with the organizers and our safe restart team that has been dealing with sports and via sport as looking at the proposal that they have and we'll be making some decisions with them on that in the near future less do you have a follow-up i was wondering about the existing general terms the cruise ship situation i know it's a federal decision about ports but you'll be consulted on that would you have any perspective on whether there will be any cruise ships allowed to dock in Canada this calendar year i can pass it over to the premier to talk about that i can say that i'm part of a group that has been working with transport canada and with our federal counterparts in the us about the potential about when cruise ships can safely come back into to bc particularly and we are still working on many of these questions yeah so part of this is of course the guidance that has come out from the us centers for disease control around what it would take to get cruise ships restarted and they have very strict guidance which includes things like a very high rate of vaccination in both staff and visitors and cruise ships it has to be up to 95 percent and that of course gives a lot of protection to those environments however we do know that shared accommodations and and particularly elderly people which we tend to see older people who take cruises it can be a risky environment and we've seen that in long-term care homes for example so we're watching the us guidelines watching what how they're being interpreted and what's happening with the the cruise industry in the us very carefully and particularly with our counterparts in washington state which is obviously the most relevant for us here in bc thank you dr me and i would just add less that a great deal of work is going on at the staff level with intergovernmental relations in my office minister flaming minister mark are meeting with the industry to ensure that they have a complete understanding of what's required to restart the sector there are a host of issues at play here of course we're going to be guided by the science of federal government also will be guided by the science and having dr henry working with phos across the country to inform dr tam and the advice that she gives to the federal government is critical to that as the as dr henry suggested but there's also a whole host of other work that needs to be done ambassador hillman the canadian representative in ottawa and i talk regularly we're scheduled to talk again this week and on thursday the prime minister has asked the premiers to come together to talk about reopening the borders land sea and air and of course we're very interested in those discussions we've been working on it quietly because you know that there is anxiety in the community i know that i feel that and we want to make sure we're on the right track cruise ships are a component part of reopening the borders a significant one to be sure and as i said last week after talking to senator murkowski the law that she brought forward and was passed will sunset when the borders open the new initiative by another senator from a landlocked state is another issue in the u.s politics but what we can do here in british columbia and in canada is prepare for reopening the industry i know people want to come to british columbia they want to cruise up the coast of our great province and we're excited about that as well but only when it's safe to do so next question is from richard's dustman global news i just want to get a sense of what's going to happen with vaccination supply over the next few weeks we heard another announcement from ottawa today that more moderna is coming that expected how much can we expect each week over the next three weeks do our clinics have enough capacity and is there any thought being given to potentially using the derma and Pfizer pharmacies or allowing doctors offices to administer it considering the amount of supply we're getting mr. dix thanks richard but first of all obviously our capacity we've been working to the capacity of the vaccine so as i mentioned 408,724 doses administered for the seven days ending on saturday which is obviously significant and this week we are expecting what's become a regular supply of Pfizer over the next two or three days and we need that because at the end of each sunday we're routinely out of it over the last two weeks in june we're expecting over those two weeks more in the second weekend in the first week about 962,000 doses over the two weeks of moderna and our really remarkable team at who are leading our immunization effort led by dr. bowman dr. henry are looking at that right now and seeing how to best apply the incremental supply of moderna to the supplies of Pfizer we're receiving now so i think the planning has gone very well up to now and we'll have more to say of that is that as the dates that the moderna will arrive come come to us but there is more capacity in our system as you would expect we've been working very precisely to the amount of vaccine we receive each week and obviously the addition of new vaccine means new opportunities for people to get vaccinated the important thing though this week um all around bc in dozens of communities there are uh walk-in pop-up first dose clinics if you haven't had your first dose in communities across bc i think there's one in princeton today but everywhere in bc there's an opportunity to get vaccinated with your first dose and there'll be opportunities for that where you can register and get vaccinated at the clinic and that is critically important for for everyone in bc though get registered if you haven't been registered and there will be of course the opportunities for first first dose and second dose vaccination that's very important to our continued success and our hope is that we'll continue to do it because everything we do depends on people in british columbia as we build the capacity out getting vaccinated so yes we've got uh incremental capacity we can use and yes we're doing the planning now for this new supply of materna richard do you have a follow-up i do premier horgan you mentioned at the beginning that there's still a reluctance uh from some to come to a reopening you know how does the province ensure that there's not tension between those that are you know ready to get moving on to the next step and those who don't want to move on and to dr barney henry to dr henry i'm just trying to get a sense of when you ease these restrictions like something like gyms and high intensity classes are all the other policies still in place like masking you know how do how do those sort of measures work well broadly speaking how do we deal with anxiety in the community is something i think most of us have been listening to for quite a number of months we need to be kind we need to be calm and we need to ensure that we keep ourselves and those around us safe those three uh directives have served us all very very well and that will help us as we move through step two into step three later in the summer the vast majority of british columbians are anxious to put covid 19 behind us but we've learned a lot over the past 16 months and one thing that stands out front and center is we cannot predict what this virus will do we can behave in a way that will reduce transmission and keep people safe and that's following the orders through step two and respecting that not everyone is at the same pace not everybody wants to get back to to fill the arena to watch the canucks or or to go to a massive concert but a lot of people do and i think people will walk vote with their feet quite frankly they're going to go to events that they're comfortable at and they're not going to go to events events that they are not and those are personal choices government can't dictate those but we can follow the the sage advice of our pho and be kind to people and respectful uh and be calm when others may not be and most importantly make sure that we keep each other safe and i'll ask dr henry to talk about any other issues in that question yeah so we are doing this as we talked about incrementally which means that we're still relying on our covid safety plans the ones that we've had in place and we've modified over time so things like high intensity fitness they still have to have reduced numbers covid safety plans in place same with the events the organized events you know the numbers are are 50 but that means we go back to having that plan where you make sure you know who's there that you have the the right things in place but we can open up a little bit more we can get back to where we were when we had more people involved but all of the same safety plans that are in place in restaurants remain in place for this phase this is two weeks this is gradually increasing our connections our connectivity and as the premier says we need to to be mindful that not everybody's in the same boat right now if we have people who in our family who are going through cancer treatments or elderly people who are not yet comfortable it's okay to say no to going to that family gathering we're putting off a little bit longer getting together with friends or others so everybody has to step back and take a look at where they are but we need to also continue to follow the rules in those places where we're going to our fitness class for the first time in a while to make sure that we can do it safely and we can gradually get back to full opening hopefully very soon Binder Sajjan, CTV Hi there, just to make sure you have updated numbers with regards to vaccinations I want to ask you a bit more about second doses I know when we did first doses we were told this age group is eligible to book and now we've got people who say they are nine weeks out still don't have an invitation so is it roughly going by age group are people getting invitations based on what their first dose was with the date just wondering if you can shed a bit more light on that and also if you have a general sense of how long it's basically taking from the time you get your invitation to book to actually getting your shot yeah so thanks and in general yes it's we prioritize people based on age as you know we had a shorter interval to start with and then we extended the interval to up to 16 weeks and so there was a large group of people particularly in long-term care homes who had already got their second doses before we ended up extending the interval so it really is based on age with the priority going to those who are the longest from receiving their second dose so that does mean that for some people where the the goal is to get invites out to people by week seven in particular or week eight so that you can get booked within the next week to two weeks so for most people right now it's around week 10 although there's some people as I mentioned who received their vaccines in March who are waiting a longer period of time in most parts of the province now we the weight is less than a week but in some places where there's been a lot more people anxious to get immunized the weight can be as long as two weeks but with the new vaccine that we have coming hopefully at the end of this week with Moderna we can augment our clinics and be able to move people up so the goal is to to get an invite out to people by week six to seven so that they can be immunized around week eight or nine so that's how we plan to progress by the time we get through the next few weeks follow up vendor yes I'm just wondering also with regard to indoor gatherings it seems like the focus is on really having them being seated indoor gatherings but when you have things like thank the halls or restaurants that have up to 50 people how do you ensure that people remain seated is it again on the establishment to make sure that happens and is there going to be enforcement to over the next couple of weeks to make sure that people abide by those rules and they're not getting up and dancing or gathering I guess so music is starting but dancing we're going to wait just a little bit longer for the dancing and singing but yes it is those COVID safety plans so after 50 people but with the same restrictions that we've had in place before and we were able to do this quite successfully last summer so I know businesses know how to do this and they'll be moving at their own pace so keeping small groups of people no more than six per table all of those things are still in place now and yes we will be inspecting we have been doing that with our environmental health officers and WorkSafeBC to make sure that it is safe not just for the people who are there for the event but for the workers as well so those are important considerations this is two weeks this is to get us back into how do we do this safely how do we build confidence in going back out and being with people in indoors spaces like we have now so it's not it's going to be a transition this is the next step and then as we move into into July hopefully we'll be able to take away a lot of those restrictions. Next question is from Graham Wood, Glacier Media. Hi there I'm just wondering just further into the future Robbie you said you're talking about buying BC and with respect to our international trade policy could we anticipate more trade missions to China steady as she goes or efforts to diversify from from the country given the geopolitical tensions? Yeah thanks for the question and so Minister George Chow and I are starting to work on a trade diversification strategy that's one of the things that was in our mandate letter to look at how we can broaden the trade opportunities for BC certainly we have additional opportunities now with recent agreements we've signed with the UK and also obviously with the European Union and so we've been meeting with our European Union partners of course when we're able to go and travel will be up to others to let us know when we can do so but certainly we're looking to diversify and broaden our trade opportunities in Europe in particular but also in some parts of Asia as well. Graham do you have a follow-up? No thank you. Great next question is from Lisa Houston news 1130. Hi there Howard everybody doing today it's exciting to see this I'm just wondering about what is possible that could make us have to step back again you're asked about the UK and I'm looking with their percentage of vaccinations for first doses about the same second is greater so is there's something that could make us hit a wall and have to step back? Well I'll start with that before I invite Dr Henry back Lisa and again we have charted our own course from the beginning obviously mindful of what's going on in other jurisdictions learning from those experiences but we have been thoughtful and methodical about this plan there was a lot of push to have us open earlier than we were ready to do so once we laid out the plan for the course of the summer Minister Callon Minister Mark met with industry tables very excited about having a way forward what I heard more than anything from businesses from not-for-profits from regular people was the uncertainty that they felt about their future and anytime there's uncertainty in someone's life that causes anxiety and tension having a path forward having a step-by-step process to safely get back to where we all want to be was widely regarded as the best way forward and we're going to continue to take our own counsel but of course be guided by the things that we see in other jurisdictions one of the issues that we talked about today was we want to make sure that non-essential travel from other provinces for example remains in place and we're going to continue to monitor that with my colleagues across the country as well Dr. Henry with public health officers in those jurisdictions but I'm confident that we're on the right track provided we follow the advice and the guidance we continue to do the things that we have been doing to get to this place I'm certain that we can carry on to step three and then later to step four as the summer evolves but Dr. Henry can do a deeper dive on that for you I absolutely agree I mean I think the things we've learned are that there's always things that are unknown I think as you called them the bricks to the head so we are watching really carefully and as I said last time you know this is a stepwise progression and we're letting the data speak for itself we're working on making sure that our public health teams are able to manage every case and you know we think about it we've we've spoken to over 145,000 people in British Columbia who've had COVID-19 we know a lot about this virus we don't know everything but we can look at what's happening we look at the rates of immunization in different age groups where we see transmission the things that we put in place that make a difference for transmission and so I don't expect well with what we know now we'll have to go back but we may need to slow going forward depending on what happens and this next couple of weeks will be very key for that and right now the public health orders are still in place so all of those things other than the changes that we've made today are still in place and we'll be looking as we get closer to July about how we can lift those orders and that would be the next step is to actually get out of the orders entirely and just have those guidance that can help us get through this next step but we'll be watching the data while doing whole genome sequencing on every case as I mentioned we're we're actively managing with people every single case and finding out where the transmission happens so that we can keep a lid on things as we move through into this next phase and the modeling I showed last week it's likely we will see an increase in numbers of people infected with the virus as we start to come together more and so that's where we have to find that balance about the things we need to do to be together and our own personal risk and our own personal comfort levels and some people won't be ready to do that for a while because there is still a risk in our communities right now but we can manage that risk we can live with this virus and still get back to those things that are so important in our lives Lisa do you have a follow-up? Yes with the vaccinations Dr. Henry you mentioned you know that there is benefit for waiting a little longer I'm sure you get a bazillion of these I get a few of the questions from people especially getting AstraZeneca should they wait longer should they get it after 12 weeks in places like here on the island where the wait through your second Pfizer can be up to a month should they just go for the AstraZeneca I think there's just people are feeling like there's a lot of decision-making in their own hands and they don't necessarily feel like up to the challenge of making the right choice. Yeah you know it is it is really difficult I understand that and the wait times will be coming down for for the mRNA vaccines from the mass clinics so that will help a little bit but yes it is reasonable to wait for 12 weeks for AstraZeneca particularly if you're in a community where there's low rates of transmission so it is a little bit dependent on where you live and which which vaccine you can access sooner so here on the island as you say the the waits in our clinics tend to be a little bit longer but those will come down to the other thing that I'll say for people with who received AstraZeneca is that we will have more information from the UK by the end of June so if your 12 weeks isn't up before the end of June that can be helpful I can't give you a definitive answer right now about whether it's the same or better to receive an mRNA vaccine after a first dose of AstraZeneca I can tell you that it's not worse and that there's what we call non inferiority which is kind of a funny way of saying in the medical terms that they're at least as good as receiving a second dose of AstraZeneca so if you are at least concerned a little bit you can wait or you can just make the choice about whichever vaccine comes up first for you. Our last question today is from Tenya Fletcher CBC. Yeah Dr Henry despite 71 percent of the Yukon population being fully immunized there continue to be outbreaks as they reopen should that be an incentive to review or perhaps increase the target in terms of vaccination rates in BC especially in light of those more contagious variants. Yeah so let me be very clear our target vaccination rate is as high as we can possibly go which is you know we'd like to get to 100 percent I think that probably is not realistic but our target immunization rates are at least 85 90 percent we would like to see it even higher and we've had that in in certain age groups and in certain communities where we've had very high rates of immunization so our target has always been to get people fully protected as much as we possibly can what we have for our restart is the minimum level that we need from a public health perspective with the modeling the data the transmission that we're seeing the minimum level that gives us the comfort that we can move to the next step and it's not just the immunization it is also looking at the data looking at transmission in our communities looking at where outbreaks are happening and making sure that we can manage those so that the virus isn't spreading widely in the community like it has done in the past and that means the minimum number of people that are protected to enable us to get back to some of these other important things and part of it is because we recognize the the what we call the unintended consequences but the consequences of the measures that we've had to put in place to stop transmission also have health impacts they have economic impacts they have impacts on our mental and social and emotional well-being so we want to make sure that we are doing the best that we can to to minimize those as we get more and more people protected through immunization but the goal of the program absolutely is to get everybody in bc who wants a vaccine fully vaccinated as soon as we possibly can follow up tanya please and if we could get an answer in french uh minister get to my colleagues thank you and maybe the premier wants to weigh in on this one as well but you know as we see this news conference broadcasted across the country the message many are seeing is that bc is open for travel despite your discouragement still is there worry that interprovincial travel could spark more aggressive transmission of a more contagious variant like the delta and you said we will likely see an increase in cases as we open up more by nature but how much of that do you think will be attributed to the visitors from other provinces you know i think we've always managed our own pandemic here in bc and it has played out differently in different provinces across the country so yes right now we want to focus on bc for people in bc and be able to to travel within our province see the people that we haven't seen go camping um do those things that we've been missing and i know in the tourism sector we've talked to minister mark and i have had a number of conversations and many people are not accepting bookings from outside of province until we move into the next step so that we can move within british columbia first yes it is likely people have always come back and forth here and it is that that that is one of the factors that we've considered in terms of the the minimum level of protection through immunization and the amount of transmission that we're seeing our communities so yes very important for us in public health to monitor people that are coming back and forth for people to get tested rapidly for us to be able to to know exactly what strains are circulating as people are moving more in the province and we will continue to do that through our public health teams across the province tannic qui habite en columbia britannique c'est maintenant la priorité en a des mesures en place pour des prochaines semaines qui reste en place donc je pense qui est important aujourd'hui pour nous en columbia britannique et c'est de c'est de un peu de changements dans une continuité d'action qui reste sur la vaccination première main qui reste sur l'action prudent de chaque personne dans la province et qui reste sur les conseils et les règles imposées par le dr honey bonnie henry et ses confrères et ses conseils et je pense si on continue à faire cela en columbia britannique nous serons sur le bon chemin le bon chemin et il faut qu'il faut rester là un peu aujourd'hui c'est un deuxième pas mais il faut toujours rester prudent ça c'est notre attitude ça c'est notre attitude envers le monde envers la reste du canada et ça va continuer à être le cas et j'ai l'air d'introduire premier hogan to close thanks adrien i'll go back before i answer tania's question i'll go back to uh to les os and my plan is to get my second astrazeneca shot based on long conversations with dr henry that came to the conclusion that we were at when we started those conversations which is the best second dose for astrazeneca people like me is the first one offered there's overwhelming evidence that either way the outcome's going to be good for the british columbian and so that's the course i'm following and i encourage others as the doctor suggested these are personal decisions you make make your decisions based on the best information you have and i have a front row seat to the best advice in the province and the advice i've been given is the best shot i can get is the first shot that's offered to me so i offered that to those who are grappling with that personal decision that's the choice that my spouse and i have made with respect to how the rest of canada should view what's happening here in british columbia i would again looking across the country we've seen a decline in case counts across the piece still some concerns in manitoba the prime the premier there of course is taking extraordinary steps to address those issues but in ontario and alberta where we saw extremely high third wave cases those are dropped significantly and i think as the summer unfolds we'll be in a better place as vaccinations pick up in those jurisdictions our advice to other canadians is we're going to welcome you down the road but not today if you don't have business in british columbia is our preference that you stay where you are and we will invite you back at the appropriate time when all british columbians are prepared to welcome you we have anxiety we've talked about that people know it they feel it you have friends and family members and and loved ones who are talking to you from across the country about how happy they are with the success we've had in british columbia and they don't want to put that at risk anymore than we do so my advice to non british columbians if you don't have business here that's essential to your well-being then please stay where you are until we get to stage three and we can have a fuller discussion about that i will be meeting with my colleagues and the prime minister on thursday to talk about borders international borders to be sure but we always discuss the issues in our various provinces and i'll be making the same request that i've been making for months to my colleagues please appeal to your citizens to stay where they are until we all come out of this stronger than we went into it that would be my advice and that would be my hope and with that i want to thank my colleagues minister mark minister call on the minister dixon and dr henry for joining me today as we've announced what can only be very positive news for all british columbians so we have been told to stay apart and now we are coming together bit by bit step by step it's the right way to go it's appropriate for all of us to take pride in what we've accomplished collectively businesses communities individuals families have made extraordinary sacrifices and there's a little bit more to go before we get back to where we were but it's just around the corner we can see it we can feel it and come july 1st i'm hopeful that we will be able to further relieve these restrictions but we need that incubation period we need that critical couple of weeks to assess the impact of the steps we're taking today all the best to everybody enjoy the rest of your week and we'll see you next time