 My name is Adrian Dix, I'm BC's Minister of Health. I'm here to my right with Dr. Bonnie Henry, BC's provincial health officer. This is our update on COVID-19 and we're here to, Dr Henry will be giving a presentation and to answer your questions. We're honoured to be here on the territory of the Lekwungen speaking people of the Songhees and the Esquimalt First Nations. With that, it's my honour to introduce Dr. Bonnie Henry. Good afternoon. So today we're going to give an update on where we are with COVID-19 and go through some of the data and talk about the measures that we're going to have coming up in the next few days and weeks. Where we are today, it should be no surprise to most people, we're in a reasonably good place. Since I last provided an update in March, we have continued to see progress that is in the right direction. Transmission, hospitalizations and deaths are all down since our last report and this is encouraging. Our approach has always been to only have the minimum necessary restrictions to keep our communities safe and now we're out of time where we can progress from legally enforceable community requirements to a place of collective being able to manage this together. We are transitioning from having all of our safety levels all over the time to requiring some of them, depending on the situation that we were in, depending on our risk at each time. And on top of the very core protection that we have from vaccination, and we can see that close to 60% of children, 5 to 11, over 90% of adults in British Columbia have received at least two doses of vaccine and close to 60% have received their booster dose. This is important. This level of immunity and protection that we have as a population means that we can move ahead with some other steps. Before I get into the data, though, I would like to take a moment to acknowledge that we have lost now over 3,000 people to COVID in the course of this pandemic here in British Columbia. These are our mothers, our fathers, our aunties, our friends, our loved friends. Even though we are in a much better place today, I know that many families are dealing with the loss of their loved one and that they have had to deal with this during this global pandemic has been a very challenging, challenging time. And I would like you to know that our thoughts and our prayers are with you as well. As we have seen in the last little while, hospitalizations and deaths have been very, very important. We know that the cases in green in this slide peaked in early January and have come down steadily. They have leveled off. Leveled off at a relatively low level. And I do need to reflect that this is PCR positive cases. Not everybody who has had COVID, as we know, many people now are using rapid tests and are being able to self-diagnose in the community and take the risk of the out-ending up having severe illness and ending up in hospital. So we have been following as well our hospitalizations and trends over time again are slowly coming down and have been leveling off a little bit, but we need to look a little bit more in depth of who is being hospitalized in our communities across BC. As you know, we moved to reporting hospitalization as a census. So it's everybody who is in hospital and it seems to be that about half of those people are people who are in hospital with an incidental test. So it's not because of COVID that they are in hospital. It is still important to acknowledge that they need to be treated differently in some ways because COVID requires other precautions in hospital. We continue to see, thankfully, a very low death rate. One of the things that we have started very early on is using the COVID-19 surveillance measures to help us understand the impact of this virus on communities. And one of the ones that has been proven to be extremely helpful is the wastewater surveillance that we started in 2020. And we can see that this reflected very well what we are seeing in communities and it's not dependent on the number of people who are tested. We have seen a decrease, a steady decrease over the last few months, and quite at the low levels that we were seeing prior to the Omicron wave, but close to those. But in the last week to two weeks, we started to see a slight uptick in wastewater surveillance as well. And that reflects, again, the fact that we have opened up, that we are seeing more transmission in the community, even as hospitalizations and severe illness continue to decline. One of the other things that we have been watching very carefully from the beginning is the genome sequencing to help us understand what strains of the virus are causing illness in our community. And we can see from this that darker shade of red is the Omicron BA.2. We have had predominantly the BA.1 and then early on we had a subset called the BA.1.1. And now about 70% to 75% of our cases are BA.2. That's important because that does help us understand what we are seeing a slight uptick in cases. And it's partly because we see from global data that the BA.2 is more infectious and can spread more easily. It does not seem, however, to cause more severe illness, particularly in people who have been immunized. So that's an important consideration as well. So when we look at who are the people who are more likely to end up in hospital and are there measures that we can take to help mitigate and prevent them from having that severe illness. We can see over time that it is our elders and seniors who are more likely to have severe illness and end up in hospital. And we see that continues with people over age 80 through this Omicron wave also being more likely to have more severe disease. And that has leveled off and has a slight uptick in the last week. And we see that people are less likely to end up in hospital. So if we break this down a little bit further and look at vaccination status, this helps us understand whether we are seeing breakthrough cases in people who have been immunized and particularly in people who have received their booster dose or two doses of vaccine, whether there is a need for an additional dose. And here in BC we can see that people who have had their booster dose up to 1.5 million doses of vaccine have had protection against severe disease. And this reflects again how the timing of the booster dose, the fact that most people received it within the last few months and that it gives good strong protection against severe illness across all age groups. And a reminder for those people who have had two doses of vaccine, if you have not yet had your booster, it is important. And people over age 70, it does give good strong protection, but we are seeing some waning of that protection in the last few weeks and particularly in people over age 80 in our communities with that booster dose still have a risk that is higher than every other age group, except for young people who are unvaccinated. So if we look at the cumulative hospitalization rate over this Omicron wave, we can see that it has essentially impacted people over age 70 and particularly people who are over age 80. And that is one of the most vulnerable areas that we can make a difference right now. If we look at the age standardized hospitalization need for critical care and death rates across the board, we see that people who are unvaccinated have a much higher risk of being hospitalized, having severe illness, ending up in critical care or dying. And that booster dose makes a tremendous difference in what we call this age standardized, that means comparing a 50 year old who is unvaccinated versus a 50 year old who has three doses of vaccine and that protection that you get from two or three doses of vaccine is apparent across all of the critical care markers. The two most important factors that we know, and this bears out again and again, our age and vaccination status. And only one of these we can control. We have no control over our age, but we can control our vaccination status and reduce our risk. And it reduces not only our risk as an individual, but it helps reduce our risk of being infected and transmitting it to others. And on a population basis, that means we have protection in our community from various strains of this variant, from Omicron, and from whatever comes next. If we look at our trajectory over the last little while, compared to other jurisdictions, we have been able to flatten our hospitalization curve and draw it out, which is really important. That helps preserve our health care system so that everybody who needs it can access it, and so we can reduce the pressure on health care workers in the system. And we see that we have a very similar low rate compared to other jurisdictions. Also see a slight increase in the last few weeks, not as much as apparent in other jurisdictions in Canada or internationally, but something that we need to pay attention to. I also want to present a little bit of the data on the seroprevalence studies. So we have been doing these and reporting on them regularly since March of 2020. And this helps us understand using samples of blood from people at the age groups in our community, how many people have antibodies to the virus and antibodies because of vaccination. So there is one antibody called the nuclear capsid protein, and if we have antibodies to that, that means we have been exposed to the virus and have developed the antibodies to that specific part of the virus. So it means you have been infected with the virus. Not everybody who is infected gets sick because of the virus. It is a marker of recent infection because they tend to fade away over time. The second antibody is one called the S protein, and that could be either from being infected with the virus or from vaccination. What we can see is over this course of the pandemic, particularly in the last month with the Omicron wave that we have had, we now have a very high level of people in our population across the board that have been exposed to both the S protein and some to the nuclear capsid protein. That tells us that there is a level of protection, not perfect, because we don't have a marker about how much of the antibody you need, but it does tell us that vaccination and subsequent infection in some people means that we have a high level of potential immunity in our community right now that is different from any other phase that we are in. When we take that into account and we look at the things that are happening right now with increasing activity, with people traveling more, with the slightly more transmissible variant that we are seeing cause infections, we know that we are likely to see a slight increase over time in the next month to two months, and then a gradual decreasing again if we continue to do the things that we are doing, we are keeping up to date with our vaccinations. The other things that we are looking at, and the data I presented says, what can we do to help reduce this potential for increase in hospitalizations? That is looking at who is most at risk and can we provide them with a booster dose that will prevent that from happening? Today we are announcing that looking at this data, we are going to be offering a spring booster dose for elders and seniors in British Columbia as the people being most at risk. We know that the older we are, the sooner that antibodies will wane, and the less strong our cell mediated, those memory cell responses will be. So an extra booster dose right now will provide a rapid increase in antibodies, and we have seen that from data in other countries where this has been used, and will provide that as we are able to get back to more activities in the community. So it will be available to, will be providing it to residents of long-term care at any age, and assisted living, and for community seniors 70 and over across the board in British Columbia, as well as for indigenous people at age 55 and older. And the fourth dose will be at about six months from your first booster dose or the dose three. In addition, we have always had a different program. We have recognized that there are a group of people who are what we call clinically extremely vulnerable. And we know that they needed three doses of vaccine to get the protection that most people have from two. And several months ago we also put in a booster dose program for that group of people, so a dose four at about six months from your first booster dose group, one and two, the immune compromising conditions will be receiving their dose four as well. So this is going to be a really important measure for us to boost the immunity in those most vulnerable to severe illness and hospitalization as we go into these spring months. Along with that, and with this level of community immunity that we have now, we are in a position where we can reduce some of the measures that are no longer necessary all the time. One of those is the BC vaccine card, which was very effective at supporting people to get vaccinated, but also during this highest risk period, being able to have these measures in place in those highest risk settings. So it is no longer required under order, so no longer a legal order. But we do know that many businesses are going to have their own clientele and their own people who go into theaters and movie theaters. And some will continue to require this. As well, businesses will transition from COVID safety plans to communicable disease plans. And these are the plans that got us through much of 2021. And we reinstated those COVID specific safety plans early on in the Omicron wave when we still didn't understand exactly what the conditions were going to be with Omicron. So we are now going back to those safety plans, still being aware in every workplace of the risks and the measures that are important to be in place to reduce the risk to workers in all of those situations. Finally, we will be removing the post-secondary residents vaccine requirement. We have seen that there are very high rates of immunization in young people, particularly young people who are living in residents in post-secondary residents. Just to go back for a minute to the spring boosters, I wanted to reiterate how important it is for all of us to ensure that we are up to date with our vaccines. And that means now getting a booster dose. We are seeing a leveling off in transmission, but that doesn't mean our province is no longer vulnerable to new potential variants that are coming in the future. We are still in a transition phase and we are still in this pandemic and we still have a lot of uncertainty what is coming next. People who don't have the protection that vaccine gives are at the highest risk, no matter what your age. And more and more data shows us that the booster dose at all ages decreases transmission, doesn't eliminate it completely. But even with Omicron, even with the BA.2, it reduces that risk of infection and provides, as we have known, very strong protection against hospitalization, ICU and death. So now is the time to get your booster. If you have had Omicron in the last few months, you can wait up to three months. But we know that the booster dose does give you longer and stronger lasting protection, even if you have had Omicron recently. I think it is important to recognize as well that we are transitioning from the most broad societal orders where we need it all of these measures all of the time, but it is not all or nothing. We need to learn to live with COVID-19 better to make sure that we continue our good habits that protect us, our family and our community. I also want to say, and we have been talking about this on and off for the last number of weeks, but we will be transitioning from the daily numbers reporting to weekly reporting, starting this Thursday, April 7. What that means is that we will be able to automatically link data and have more in-depth and detailed, accurate reporting of numbers of the previous week to get people a better sense of what we expect to see and what the risk profile is. We have, as we have seen, especially during Omicron, when it was very challenging to keep up with the daily manual line lists, we see various things on a day-to-day basis. We now have an automated process that allows us to do it in a more accurate and timely way, as well, we will be transitioning to a new way of reporting people who have died from COVID. It is going to be looking at 30-day all-cause mortality in anybody who has had a COVID-positive test. That means we will be over counting people early on, because we know that it takes several days for the linkage to happen between our lab tests and vital statistics. But then as we get the cause of death data in from vital statistics, that will be updated on a rolling basis. And that gives us a more accurate picture of all-cause impacts from COVID-19. I do want to just quickly update about the regulated health professionals order. I do want to also say that the changes in use of the BC vaccine card and this order have no bearing on the requirements that we continue to have for all health-care professionals in our public health-care system to be vaccinated. That requirement has been incredibly important in protecting our health-care system through this wave, and is important for helping us make sure we are ready for what comes in the future. But we have been working with the 18 regulated health profession colleges to gather data on vaccine status and the deadline for this was March 31 and the colleges are actively doing that right now. We have good data on most people, but they are continuing to follow up on individuals who may have been on vacation or maternity leave and other things. Our team is now actively compiling this aggregated vaccination data by profession. And I will be reporting that out by profession. So people will have an understanding of the vaccination levels of different professions in the community and can make their own informed decisions about their own care based on that. We are also working with the colleges and will be over the next few weeks and months to put in place processes based on risk so that people will have informed consent about whether they want to receive a procedure or a health-care service from a private practitioner who is vaccinated or not. I do want to say as well that we are working very hard to integrate all of our surveillance pieces. And although we report out on a regular basis on a number of things, we are following a number of other surveillance streams, including a population, what we call sentinel surveillance. We have had this in place for many years for influenza and we are integrating COVID into that so that we can look at all of the serious respiratory illnesses that we have to treat in the future. So that includes things like influenza, COVID, RSV, and para influenza. We are looking at, we will be and continue to do facility-based monitoring of cases and outbreaks. We are expanding our systematic early morning signals through wastewater to areas outside of the lower mainland. This has proven to be a really helpful objective surveillance measure so we will be expanding it across the province and also using the number of pathogens that we can look for using this wastewater techniques that we perfected over the last two years. We will be continuing to do more frequent targeted serological surveillance. So that is looking for those antibodies in the blood that I have mentioned. Doing it in a shorter timeframe that helps us understand the transmission of the different respiratory viruses over time. And as we have seen how helpful it is in helping us understand the different transmission patterns of the different variants that are affecting people in British Columbia. As we progress forward through this phase of our pandemic, a transition phase, we are in a place where we can go from those mandated requirements to managing things with the good, managing our own health, looking at the good habits that help us protect ourselves, our family and our communities. COVID-19 transmission continues but at a much lower level and with a much higher level of community protection right now. But we know that that will wane over time. So we need to build these habits and these tools in that we have now into our future as well. These good habits include the importance of keeping up to date on our vaccination. And that means right now, a spring booster dose for our elders and seniors and long-term care and in the community. But we will be watching and looking at different variants that arise. What might our future be in terms of next respiratory season, late summer and spring and fall? It may be that we will recommend a booster dose for more people. It may be that we will need another booster dose for those who are most at risk. We need to pay attention to how we are feeling and staying home if we are sick, using rapid tests to help us make those decisions about whether it is COVID that is causing our illness or not. It means wearing a mask when we choose or if somebody asks you to or if we are entering their home or their business. It's about also knowing our own comfort levels and respecting that of others. We need to pay attention to things that help us, enable us to do this, like paid sick leave. There is no magic moment to lift restrictions and there is no amount of delaying that will make it absolutely safe all the time. So it is something that we need to find this balance. And I believe as we are transitioning through this, we have the tools that we know work, we have vaccination, we have the things that we are getting used to being in the habit of doing, like staying away when we are sick, like wearing a mask when it is appropriate. This is our time to walk through this transition together. And I want to thank everybody across the province for doing their part for so long. It has been a most challenging time. And we are not through it yet, but your kindness and compassion has made the difference in so many ways. And we need to keep doing this together through this phase and as we get to the next phase in the spring and fall. Thank you very much. Thank you very much, Dr. Henry. And I wanted to just start by joining Dr. Henry and thanking all the healthcare workers across BC for their extraordinary work during this pandemic. One of the areas where this work has been exceptional has been our vaccination campaigns across BC. And yesterday we passed 10 million appointments booked, 11,506,098 vaccines administered, 4,529,771 doses, 4,358,529 second doses, 2,677,580 booster doses, and 1,000,000 booster doses. And I want to thank everybody for your support. We are getting over 580 booster doses to date. And as Dr. Henry has noted, that effort not only continues but has significantly expanded today beyond even the recommendations of the National Advisory Committee on immunization. I want to put in context the significance of this that is focused, as you can see, by the evidence before us, that there are at present people over 70 who have received their booster or third dose. And that group of people as they approach the interval period will be eligible for an additional booster dose. That is significant. In addition to that, there are in the category of clinically vulnerable, described by Dr. Henry, those who received their third dose, not a booster dose, but the completion of their course of COVID-19. And that is what we are going to do. That is what we are going to do in terms of COVID-19 vaccines last fall. That is about 100,000 people in those categories, those people who have our immunity suppressed and have access. And of course, the work that will be going on over the next month in April in long-term care, where essentially all long-term care homes received the option of getting COVID-19, not like homes, but people in the homes, the option of getting a COVID-19 pandemic vaccine, booster vaccine, booster vaccine in the month of October, April is six months from then, so we will be at all long-term care homes, the vaccine campaign in the month of April. And finally, I would just like to reiterate a very important point about booster doses. There are over 70, currently 68,221 people over 70 who haven't received their booster dose and who are eligible for that dose. And I would strongly encourage them today to go on the get vaccinated website or to call 1-833-838-2323 and book their appointment today at the hundreds of pharmacies that are currently taking appointments. For example, it is more than ever important for this group of people to get that first booster dose. And I encourage all of them to get it. And I encourage the 1,198,000 people who have the option of getting a booster dose. I encourage the 1,198,000 people in BC who are eligible for their booster doses to do the same. It is important in these times, it is a critical protection evidence shows that. I encourage everyone to do that and I wanted to thank all those involved in community pharmacy for all their continued work on this issue. I just want to give an update on rapid tests and to let you know about a change in the way we will be distributing rapid tests in the coming weeks. As of April 1st BC has received 50,317,800 rapid tests. 40,145,396 tests have been deployed to key strategic areas. As presently noted, just over half a million tests in our inventory are not suitable for deployment or personal use and are being used at the discretion of medical health officers in the appropriate settings. That leaves a current inventory of 9,626,860 tests. And that leaves a current inventory of 9,626,860 tests. Suitable for self-administered use. But in context, the date 4.4 million tests have been distributed to 12 schools across the province. 2.13 million tests have been distributed to post-secondary institutions. And 9 million tests have been delivered to more than 1,300 pharmacies across BC. Tests for British Columbians age 18 and older, plus and older to pick up a kit containing five tests that are participating pharmacies. The number of tests for British Columbians age 18 and older to pick up a kit containing five tests is 4.3 million. And as of yesterday, pharmacies have dispensed 4.3 million tests. That's more than 800,000 people have picked up their tests from that source. That's in addition to the tests that have been distributed through the education system and many other places. Our inventories in the province remain sufficient to handle expected demand over the next month. Starting off to April 8, therefore, people can access rapid tests at pharmacies with no care card required. For information on accessing test kits, British Columbians can visit bcfarmacy.ca to make sure pharmacy has test kits. It's important to remember that testing continues to be something we do when we have symptoms that hasn't changed. Increased test availability means more members of the general public will be able to access tests to use to understand their own symptoms and illness and to take action to limit transmission to their friends, family, and work, including those at a higher risk. This is our weekly surgical renewal update. The week of March 27, 27 to April 2, marks the first week since September in which there were no surgical postponements due to COVID-19. Health authorities report that 6,983 surgeries were completed from March 6 to March 12. That's similar to what we saw in advance before the pandemic. It's a significant number of surgeries and it's even more impressive for the fact that this is very close to that number, very close to the number we did in that same week in 2019. As we noted in May 2020 when we made our surgical renewal commitment, and as I reiterated last November, when surgeries are postponed because of COVID, it also means that surgeries aren't booked and that's why taking care these past few weeks by all of you has been so critical and why getting vaccinated continues to be critical to reducing that hospitalization due to COVID and the number of people with COVID in our ICUs so that we can give all those involved in delivering surgeries every opportunity they need to do the work we're counting on them to do. When we know someone who has had their surgery, when we know someone who has now received their call to re-book their surgery, each of us can, I think, appreciate how meaningful this achievement is for everyone. Each surgery is life changing for the rest of us and to this end, I'll be continuing to meet with all those involved in delivering surgeries and all surgical division organizations as we renew, strengthen and rebuild and move forward with our surgical renewal commitment and continue to fulfill our promises to patients. Since our last briefing, since the lifting of mandates and easing of restrictions, I think each of us, going at our own pace and adapting to these changes has continued to make a difference, to stop the rapid spread of COVID. It is by taking care, by doing what we know works to keep us and those around us safe, that we continue to give ourselves the much needed opportunity to safely renew. I think for all of us, I want to say, I want to say in conclusion how much I appreciate and continue to appreciate the commitment of British Columbians and the generosity of people in this province. We need to continue to keep steps to follow each other and to keep ourselves safe. This pandemic, throughout its course, and this virus, which doesn't care about our, about anything but transmitting, will have, as people will know, we are in the basement of the legislature, we're occasionally interrupted by Bells, which is for people who work here. I think generally a positive thing, so I'll just say that, but it also clearly is a virus that doesn't care about Bells, any more than it cares about sometimes our divisions in society around some of these questions. Here in BC, with 94% of adults vaccinated, with the support we've given one another, we have, I think, demonstrated the best possible response to COVID-19 as a community. And I want to thank British Columbians for doing that. There will be more surprises and challenges in the months to come. I know we are up to that and we are about the COVID-19 pandemic as we go forward, and with that, I'm happy to take your questions. Thank you. A reminder to media on the line, please press star 1 to enter the queue for a chance to ask a question and a follow-up. Our first question today will come from the room, Richard Zesman, Global News. You mentioned some businesses may want to keep the vaccine card based on their clientele, what sort of businesses are there for businesses who put in vaccine requirement for their employees, based on your advice, should they continue to keep that vaccine requirement in place for their workers? So two very different issues. The vaccine card was in place, as you know, the requirement was in certain places to ensure that only vaccinated people attended those higher risk indoor settings. So I know I've talked with some business owners who own restaurants, for example, community restaurants where they feel that they're going to keep that requirement for a period of time. We know as well that some smaller shops that can get more crowded, they also want to keep requirements for mask wearing or for people to be vaccinated. And we've seen that in theaters, in museums and places where it actually wasn't required. So each business has to do their own due diligence and has to make sure they have the ability to accommodate people who aren't vaccinated, whether that's doing takeaway or being able to watch things remotely. So it is about doing your own due diligence, but that is still there for people to use depending on their own safety protocols. In terms of vaccine mandates for workplaces, again, my recommendations have been focused on the health system, and we continue to have that in place in the health system, recognizing how important it is as we're going through again, there will be more uncertain times in the future to make sure we all have that protection. And I know a number of different businesses, organizations, including the public service agency, did again. Their due diligence about the risk and what positions were, had risk in their different settings, and again, that is up to each business to make sure that they've done their due diligence, and they have the processes in place that meet the requirements of their own collective agreements and other employee and employer agreements. MODERATOR Around long-term care visitations, no changes announced today on that. When should we expect to see some changes around how many people can come to long-term care? I'm just hoping for Minister Dix also to provide clarity around the announcement about rapid testing if it now includes all ages can access rapid tests or will still be done through schools and how quickly. So just those two things, please. In long-term care, we have opened up visitation in long-term care so that vaccinated visitors of any number can come. We do rapid testing, particularly when people start to come in, and we're looking at what is a rational policy for ongoing rapid testing of visitors, particularly regular visitors, where we don't necessarily need to have a test every single day. And now that we have access, people can do them at home prior to visitation. So that is ongoing. MODERATOR With respect to rapid tests, we have about 50 million with us. About 40 million have been distributed, about 9 million have been distributed to pharmacies. To pick them up, you have to be 18 and older. That continues to be the case. You're limited within a period in what you can pick up. It will still be one at a time, but you have to give your medical services card number, and that number is tracked after April 11th. That won't happen any further. We'll simply distribute them. It saves pharmacy costs, it saves us costs, and it reflects the numbers of rapid tests we have. It should be said that I really encourage people to go in the meantime . I picked up a number of weeks ago, expire I think in January 2024, meaning that I won't necessarily need to use them right away, but it's good to have them in stock in our household, have them there. And so in terms of schools, we sort of distributed through the school system a very significant amount, but we hold rapid tests on hand and we'll be able to keep that, keep people in the education system with rapid tests into the future. The federal government has generally indicated they're going to continue to supply them, so we're distributing them broadly right now. And really, everyone in BC, every adult in BC, every school-aged child in BC has access now to rapid tests. They can simply pick them up for free. And that's as broad an access as we can get. We encourage people to pick them up. And there are rapid tests available today and there are vaccinations available to be booked and I encourage people to get booked for their vaccinations. Our next question comes from Joujou Globe and Mail. Thanks for taking my question. Quebec and the PEI have put a pause on lifting their mask mandates. With removing mask requirements done prematurely in BC, and what metric would BC need to meet before you re-implement masks? Yes, so we have always thought a lot about risks and benefits when you have a legal mandate in place. So we remove that, as you know, a number of weeks ago, given what we were seeing in terms of the high level of vaccination and the low levels of transmission. It's not an all-or-nothing proposition, however. And we still encourage people to wear masks, particularly in those indoor spaces when you're close to people that you don't know where you might be, have poor ventilation or crowding. So we still strongly encourage that for people to choose to do that. But we no longer feel it's necessary to have a legal order that requires you to wear it all the time every day in those settings. And particularly, we know it impacted children and staff in schools and post-secondary institutions. And people who are also affected by many other measures. So we are perfectly, we believe that we had the right time for removing the mask mandate. We've seen a continued decrease in transmission and that people are respectful of requirements and requests to wear masks. Shou, do you have a follow-up? Yes, I do. Thanks. The uptake of third doses was low. How do we expect the uptake of fourth shots to go? And if the vaccine passport was useful in propelling our second doses, why get rid of it? Wouldn't you do the same for third shots? Yes, it is one measure. But it is only one measure that can incentivize people to be immunized. And that was one of the ways we used the BC vaccine card. And it was quite effective in that. On the other hand, there are downsides to the BC vaccine card. So we are, there are a lot of people who are not vaccinated and we are, and I've just, sorry, I lost the first part of your question. Jiao, would you mind repeating? I'm sorry. The uptake of third shots was low. How do we expect the uptake of fourth shots to go? Well, this is a very targeted program. It's targeted at those people who we know and we presented the data at our most at risk of having waning immunity. Most of them have had their third shot, their booster, their first booster, so their third shot. And the level of protection is waning over time. So I expect that we are going to see a high uptake of the fourth dose in seniors and elders. I will also say that when we look at our serial prevalence that I presented and it shows a high rate of exposure to the virus in, or developing of antibodies in younger people, but a very low rate in older people. So we are going to see only about 10 or 11% of them, somewhere around there, had antibodies to the virus, which means their protection is from vaccination and that we have done a good job of protecting them from infection. So that's the group of people where we need to get that extra booster dose in to bump up their antibodies, bump up that cell mediated immunity as we are going through this next few months. And just say that we are talking about people 70 and above, so put this in context, between 94 and 95% of people 70 and above received their first dose. 92% have received their second dose, meaning approximately 97% of those who got their first dose, who got their second dose. With respect to those who have had two doses, 90% of those 70 and above have received their booster dose, which is impressive. And that is what we are seeing because of its value, which is demonstrated by the data and demonstrated and understood by those over 70, based on their uptake of the extraordinary uptake of vaccination in those categories, they understand better than anybody, I believe, the value of vaccination, the protection it provides to them. So I don't agree with that characterization of it. In fact, there's been excellent uptake amongst those over 70 and above the next period for people when they reach, when the interval period passes from the last booster dose, I'm expecting a high degree of uptake, and of course, there is a very high degree of uptake as well in long-term care, which we expect to see again in the month of April as we go through both the vaccination process and what precedes that and what's going on now, which is, in some cases, a requirement for people to be vaccinated, but we've actually been quite positive and I'm optimistic about it. There are some areas of our vaccination program where we continue to make efforts to see a higher level of vaccination. That includes children 5 to 11, for example, but I think in general, what I would say to everybody is, there are hundreds, hundreds of community pharmacies who have appointments open in BC for vaccination, and I encourage all of those who haven't got their booster, and that's over the whole province, about 1,198,000 of those who are eligible to get their booster as soon as possible. Our next question comes from Bender Satchin, CTV. Hello there. I'm just wondering if you can maybe provide a number in terms of community immunity and how many people you think have had the virus, and also, I know you're talking about spring booster, but I'm wondering for people who are older, clinically extremely vulnerable and other groups, but I'm wondering, do you anticipate that the second booster will be offered to the rest of the populations as it was, as the initial vaccines were? The short answer is no. At this point, we don't see it progressing beyond those most at risk right now. So it's the spring booster for those who need it right now, and that's seniors and elders, and I see statement is very similar. The rest of us who have had our booster already have good strong protection from that still. So I don't foresee that in the near future. We don't yet know what's going to happen when we come up to late summer, early fall, when we expect to be back in respiratory season, and we're looking at the different scenarios that could happen. So we're looking at the potential booster, maybe it will just be for people who are most at risk. So those are things that we don't yet know that we're planning for, the different scenarios that could happen in the fall, but in the short term, the spring boost is for those who need it most, and that's seniors and elders over the age of 70, and people who don't mount a strong immune response because of their clinical protection we have from the combination of vaccination and infection. So when I talked about the percentage of people in the seroprevalence, there was a percentage of people that had indication of either or, and it differs by age. So across the board, there's probably about 50% of people who have antibodies to the virus, which shows the nucleocapsid protein, which shows that they had exposure and infection. But the vast majority of those people are vaccinated. So it is a boost to their vaccine protection that they have already, which is a good thing. It means that most people didn't have very severe illness, and they have a bit of a boost to their immunity because they were exposed and infected with the virus. I know some people still had, got very sick with it, but they were not able to get any medical care. And that's because they had the protection from the vaccines, whether it was two doses or more importantly, three doses. So that needs to continue. We have seen though that in the zero to four age group, that group of young people, young children who are not yet eligible for vaccination, we're seeing that both 50% to 60% of that virus goes to the virus in the recent few months. And if we look at data from other places around the world, we also see that Omicron does cause less severe illness in children even than the previous variants. So this is a bit of a relief considering we don't yet have vaccination for that age group, that Omicron is not causing severe illness for the most part in younger children, and that's important for us to know. I do think it is important as well to recognize that prevention of infection is important. People who get infected with this virus can develop long symptoms, even if they don't have very severe illness. And long COVID is a very real phenomenon that affects people. We know that this virus can affect, can cause inflammation of the heart, inflammation of the lining of the heart, of the blood vessels that can lead to things like strokes and heart attacks that go on for a long time and can leave people with long lasting effects. Thankfully, Omicron doesn't cause that as much as Delta in particular, but we don't know what's coming next. What we do know is that vaccines reduce that risk of long COVID dramatically. Some studies show at least 50% reduction in long COVID if you're vaccinated with two doses of vaccine. So this is my plea to people now. Recognize that we're in a place right now where we have a level of immunity, we have decreasing transmission in our communities, but you need to protect yourself from the risks of this virus, and it will change. We've seen that globally, that this virus will change, and so this is what we're going to do here. And I just also want to say, because I was going to mention and I forgot, that Novavax, which is the protein subunit vaccine, a more traditional form of vaccine, has finally arrived in Canada. It's been delayed for a few weeks, and we expect it will be available for people either late this week or early next week. I know there's several thousand people who have signed up for it and if anybody is interested right now in getting it, either as your first dose, your second dose, or a booster dose, you can call the 833-838-2323 number. And put yourself on the list to get that vaccine when it comes in. Binder, do you have a follow-up? I do, I'm just wondering, when it comes to rapid tests, which most people have access to, how good are they at catching subsequent variants, such as VA2 hearing anecdotally, people saying it takes a couple of days after infection or after becoming symptomatic to show up, in some cases, not showing up at all. Is there a concern that as we see different variants that these rapid tests may not catch the virus? That was a concern. It continues to be a concern. And this is why they are most useful when you have symptoms. And yes, for some people they may not shed as much virus or they may not use it, I know we've all probably experimented with them now. They may not have done a good enough sample to pick up the virus. But we're not seeing a difference between, from what I've been watching, from what our lab tells us, not seeing a difference between VA1 and VA2 in terms of being able to pick up positive, but there are also false negatives, especially early on in infection. So if you still have symptoms, repeat the test. But it is also not very helpful and is less accurate if you don't have symptoms, so if you've been exposed to somebody and you don't have symptoms yourself, the rapid test doesn't really tell you anything. So again, it goes back to what I talk about, it's a red light, not too much, I really don't have any words for that. Thank you, Dr. Henry, I just want to ask about changes in death reporting. When you know subsequently how many people have died from COVID-19, because you said at first there would be an over reporting of that number. Will that number of the people who have actually died from COVID-19 be listed as a separate number or in a separate category on the dashboard. how many people have actually died from COVID-19? Yeah, a very good question. And what I can do is get the epidemiologists from the VCCDC to walk through it with anybody who's interested about how the data is linked and how it is updated in real time. So there will be a retrospective decreasing and increasing of numbers as the data is refreshed over time. But it will be automated. So right now, when we do that, you may recall some days we've taken off X number of cases and because we do periodic data reviews now, it will be an ongoing automated data review. So at the beginning, it will look more awkward than as time goes on, it'll even out. But I can reach out to our team and give people a technical briefing on what exactly it's going to look like, if you like. Do you have a follow-up, Lisa? Yes, thank you. Also on the weekly reporting, it will be a weekly reporting of hospitalizations and whatnot. But if there is a spike, let's say one day there's one hospital case and the next day there's 100 and the third day there's 500. How will you know that before a week goes by, since that is a long time, if there is a spike or will you be receiving those numbers daily but just be posting them weekly? So what we do, we look at those numbers every day and they're preliminary numbers and we get these automatic preliminary numbers and the minister and the team looks at the overall numbers. We talk about those sometimes. What's the overall census in ICU? How many people are there in hospital overall in which beds? So this is a more, as we went to this census reporting of hospitalizations, we get the preliminary numbers every day and we will continue to do that. We'll continue to monitor that. We get preliminary reports from the lab linkage about how many people have tested positive but there's often duplications in those and so the numbers that come out one day will be overestimates because the cutoff was at 9 o'clock instead of 10 o'clock or there was a second runner. A whole bunch of things happen on a day-to-day basis that we can then, once a week, look back and get the more accurate numbers by day. So that's how it will be reporting coming along but we continue to monitor these things on a day-to-day basis. Just one sentence aside. There will be a daily report today and tomorrow as we go into the new weekly things where you'll get some information on or around 3 o'clock or between 3 and 4 o'clock today and tomorrow and then after that we'll be moving to weekly reporting. Our next question goes to Rob Schott, Check News. Oh hi, I've listened to you talk about slide 12 twice in the technical briefing and publicly and I just, I apologize if this is an overly simplistic question but when you look at it it looks like there's another wave of new daily hospital admissions and that in the 20% increase in area you get to the kind of almost height of new daily hospital admissions that we were at in January where we were worried about the stress on the healthcare system. Am I reading that wrong or is that the potential that that happens and what am I getting wrong about this chart because I feel like I must have missed something here? So again, it's modeling so it gives us a sense of what could happen depending on different scenarios and so some of the things that this helps us say is giving this fourth spring booster dose to those who are more likely to be hospitalized can affect that. The measures that we all take to check ourselves, make sure that we're feeling well, testing if we have symptoms staying away from others so that we're not transmitting it that makes a difference in this wave. So yes, we expect to see a gradual increase and then a slowing but even I talk through these things with the modelers all the time at the peak with that 20% potential increase we would expect to see about half the hospitalizations at a very slow rate over time. So what we saw with Omicron was a very rapid rise and then a gradual falling off. What this is predicting is that if we do the things that we're doing, if nothing changes then we're going to see a gradual a much slower and lower rise over time over the next couple of months and that there are things that we can do that can affect this trajectory. Rob, do you have a follow-up? No, that's good, thank you. Okay, we'll go to Moira White and the Taiyi. Hi, thank you for taking my question. Dr. Henry earlier in this briefing you said that we were still seeing quite a low rate of death in the last three months you've seen nearly 600 people die about a fifth of our recorded toll so far and as your modeling suggests we're now on the precipice of a sixth wave depending on how things go. What's the reasoning behind lifting protective measures now and how would you explain that strategy to people who are vulnerable or elderly and know that they are at the greatest risk in terms of their lives? Yeah, I think what we need to do is put it in a balance and we've talked about this a lot you know there are things that we can do to protect ourselves as individuals and there's things that we can do that protect ourselves collectively and the number one most important one is being vaccinated and that is it protects you as an individual there's a fourth dose available for those who are most at risk and we know that that makes a difference so that's an important protection but we also need to be true to the third goal of our pandemic response which is minimizing societal disruption and understanding that there are negative consequences to each of the orders each of the actions that we put in place by legal requirement so we need to find those balance and you're right there's no magic time when there will be zero risks keep in place certain things for the next two weeks and the next month there still will be no zero risk when we remove those so we have to find a time where we know we have strong levels of immunity in our community right now we know that people know what to do that these become part of our healthy habits that we do to protect ourselves and our family and those we're close to particularly with severe illness we have that extra booster shot keeping up to date with our vaccines those are the things that will get us through this transition period and I think it's it's challenging to know when is the best time to do things but I think we're in a place as well where we're moving into summer where we're doing more things outside there's more opportunities for people to have those safe interactions Moira do you have a follow up I do thank you Dr. Henry just further to your note on needing to find that balance you know a lot of people I've spoken to who are at higher risk despite being triple or even quadruple vaccinated shortly are just saying they feel like they're at the end of what they can accomplish as an individual and they're worried about going to the grocery store and protecting themselves from their children going to school not wearing masks with other kids who are in large part not vaccinated either how do you articulate the balance between someone losing their life as we're seeing multiple people each day on average are doing in ZP and having to wear masks when you go into the grocery store what is the calculation around that balance for you yeah so I think I wrote an op-ed that has some of this in it as well I think we also have been through a very traumatic period of two years now where this virus has changed we've adapted there are very few people that are at that very high level of risk anymore and that's because we've had this highly effective vaccines and we know that there are other risks in our community that we all need to pay attention to and the measures that we're taking are ones that protect us from other respiratory illnesses from other infections as well and these are things that we've always done we've always had to balance those risks about what we're seeing what we're exposed to what our own risk is and right now with the level of transmission we're seeing with the measures that we have in place we're at a high risk environment and we can have the confidence that we're vaccinated that we're wearing masks we keep our respectful distance from people we still have barriers in place we're paying attention to things like ventilation that we can safely do more but it will be a transition period for all of us and we'll have to manage that we'll have to support each other and be positive in how we do that over the next few weeks and months I just want to know on the issue of those most vulnerable but I think one of the things that public health in BC all of our medical health teams and Dr. Henry have put at the forefront in everything that we've done has been to protect those who are most vulnerable to COVID-19 it's why we put forward for vaccination are repeated clinically vulnerable programs that were by the way wildly successful in responding to the needs of those who are clinically vulnerable to get vaccinated first why we gave priority in terms of vaccination at every stage including at the booster stage to those populations and to older people why in a very significant announcement today we're providing a second booster to those most vulnerable and clinically vulnerable to COVID-19 or a fourth dose to the clinically vulnerable community in BC and that has been affected our approach to other groups that have been led by Dr. Henry including indigenous groups in BC and the work that has been done by the First Nations Health Authority by Dr. Ben Smith and Dr. Henry's office is a demonstration of that and with respect to access to antivirals those clinically vulnerable having priority and with respect to access to rapid tests every step in this process priority has been given to those who are clinically vulnerable and that represents not just the medical approach that public health has taken in BC but the ethical one and it's one that I'm very proud of them for we have time for one more question today we'll go to Bill Peary, CBC absolutely thank you Ian just a reminder as well about the fact that we do have treatments available and we are getting more of them in particularly Paxilvid which is an antiviral and people are prioritized by their own risk and I encourage people to go to the COVID treatments website and get more information there's a process there even if you don't have access to a family physician where you can look at your own risk and whether you're eligible to receive these treatments so that's another tool that we have that can support people and prevent them from having severe illness and we've had several thousand people already who've had either Satrova or Paxilvid in the last few months sorry about that Bill, thank you so much please go ahead with your question no problem, thanks Dr Henry, if the strategy now is from British Columbians to assess their own risk for COVID and then make their own decisions based on that how do they assess that risk accurately if they only have numbers like you know when we plan our lives we check the weather every day not once a week so how do we get enough information with only weekly numbers and not daily and in English and French please so I think that weather is a very good analogy the weather does change every day what we're seeing in terms of risk doesn't change every day it's more like climate as opposed to weather what you're seeing every day and so yeah it is important to understand where we are collectively over time but these are not measures that for example wastewater testing we only do it once a week it's only able to be done at that frequency it doesn't change that much over a period of a day or 24 hours and so yes what's my risk this week what are the things that I feel comfortable doing you know next week well shall I go out to a restaurant with friends this coming weekend here's how I'm feeling here's what I know about my friends and whether they've been exposed to anybody with COVID here's how on a day to day basis we have to look at how am I feeling today do I have a scratchy throat do I have a fever maybe I'll hold off meeting with going to visit my grandparents if I'm not feeling so well today those are the things that we need to start building into how we do our assessment and having a daily number of people who are test positive for COVID is not going to help us make those decisions in a one on one basis on a day to day basis because it doesn't change that much from day to day we can get a sense of what's happening in the province over time and a weekly time frame is what is most reasonable given what we're seeing with transmission patterns right now yes effectively the time changes every day but the risks of COVID-19 don't change in this way so there are abdominal updates walking for people but if it's Monday and you have to be vaccinated if it's Monday you have to be vaccinated if it's Monday you have to be vaccinated etc so it doesn't change we will see a lot of information for people every Thursday what will be important for people who are interested and it's important for that but this virus doesn't change from day to day the risks don't change from day to day so I think it's important to have the information and we will see a lot for people and if things change directly and quickly we will come back here and inform you but I think it's not like the time in this sense in this sense and I think there will be a lot of information for people to make good decisions on COVID-19 Bel, do you have a follow up? Yes, please Dr Henry the transition phase we've heard it many times before so how confident are you that this reprieve from restrictions would be permanent this time around because we hear you say not through it yet how long until we are through it English and French please I wish I knew I think about we talk about it becoming endemic and endemic means there's going to be a certain level of circulation of the virus but it doesn't mean good and it doesn't mean that it's only mild and we don't have to worry about it COVID is going to be one I believe one of the viruses that we're going to have to manage along with influenza parainfluenza on a periodic basis for the foreseeable future in a best case scenario if we were all optimists it would fade into more like an adenovirus or a common cold virus but it's not there right now so for the next few months we have a sense of where we are we have a high level of immunity we have lots of antibodies we're giving a boost to immunity but I'm also planning for what are the possible scenarios come the fall and what surveillance measures do we need to have in place to tell if we're going down more severe brand new virus versus less severe good immunity continuing from the vaccines that we have so those are the thought processes that we're going through right now I hope we don't have to ever go back to orders because that legal enforceable order is a last resort in a public health framework and it's when we absolutely need to do that we know a lot more about how we behave and how that can protect us and keep us from getting sick and for people who have not had a cold or influenza for the last two years we've seen that so we have to take those all into account we're not at the point where we understand the periodicity and the changing of this virus so there's still a lot of uncertainty I think for another year will be a better place to understand that in a year but in the meantime we are in a good place to take the measures that we to remove some of the restrictions that we have in place right now because of the level of immunity that we have so I can't predict if it's going to be better or worse we've been talking about this globally as well as across the country and here in BC and we can look at models we can look at the potential I think the worst case scenario would be if a whole new variant arose that was a coronavirus that the vaccine protection that was able to evade vaccine protection using more severe illness than Delta for example then we would have to look at taking some of these more drastic measures that keep people apart and slow down that transmission until we had a new vaccine or effective treatment but that's like a whole new pandemic starting so that's one of the scenarios that we need to think through I expect probably will be somewhere in the middle and that will need a booster dose at some point in time for most people perhaps sooner for those who are more vulnerable but there's as I say I don't want to be ominous we're in a good place now we need to take advantage of that and we need to learn about how to live with COVID better and make sure that we're taking those precautions that we know work for us personally and of course to get vaccinated and just in French I think it's a virus COVID-19 that has surprises that will have surprises for us so we will have to get ready we're doing it for example preparing all the scenarios for autumn and for winter because we know that it's the season and there are respiratory viruses and we need to get ready we will continue to do our best because in a health system there are a lot of challenges there are challenges for primary health there are challenges for surgery there are challenges in our hospitals and there is a group of workers in a health system who are exhausted by the COVID-19 and everything that has been going on for two years there are a lot to do and we will continue to get ready for all the COVID-19 scenarios but for other things too continue to do this work with you all and I think for the population in general we will have to continue to live with the COVID-19 it's always a pandemic we must always manage the level of society and also and it will be with us for months and no doubt more than that in the future and so it is necessary to take the advantage of these circumstances but to respond to those who give us the virus in the coming months thank you very much we will see you soon