 Okay, who am I getting a good to go from? Good to go. Okay, thank you everyone for joining Minister Dixon. Dr. Henry and I here today on the traditional territory of the Lekongan-speaking people, the Esquimalt and Songhees First Nation. And I'm not surprising anyone by saying the past two years has been a burden on all of us. Wherever we live in British Columbia, indeed wherever we live around the globe. But here in British Columbia we've shown that if we work together we can overcome adversity and by following public health orders and advice, looking after each other, looking after our neighbors, looking after our family members, we can do just about anything, even in the face of a global pandemic. These measures that have been in place for the past number of months to address the Omicron wave have been challenging for many, many people. But our approach since day one has been to ensure that the restrictions in place are absolutely necessary to protect people going forward. And that remains the case today. And we've managed through this latest wave of the pandemic again by following public health orders and continuing to use tools like masks when we're indoors, safety plans at our workplace, and of course the BC vaccine card to ensure that everyone that we're interacting with has done everything that they can to protect themselves and to protect those around them. But today I'm pleased that we're in a position that the restrictions with respect to social gatherings and public events will be lifted effective 1159 tomorrow. And I'll leave Dr. Henry to go through the many details that are involved. Again, the balanced approach that we've taken as a government with the best public advice we can get from Dr. Henry and her team that allows us to ease these restrictions at this time and look forward to brighter days ahead so that we can get back to the things that we love, that businesses can get back to the hard work of making a go of it in a tough time. But I also want to say that Minister Ravi Kallan and I and Dr. Henry briefed over 150 business leaders today and the general sentiment is a positive one because from the beginning we've tried to ensure that the restrictions that we bring in based on advice are as passive as possible to meet the maximum outcome which is the well-being of our fellow citizens. We have the strongest economy in the country. We have, we've seen wages increase year over year over the past two years as well as ensuring that we have low unemployment and an economy that works for everyone. There are significant challenges ahead in that regard and they're not affected at all by these decisions today but we're going to continue working with working people with businesses and others to ensure that our economy can continue to grow and benefit all of us. What had got us here again is that we listened to Dr. Henry and her officials. We listened as a group collectively as a province to the good advice. We wore masks when it was important to do so and we got vaccinated in record numbers and Minister Dix can talk about the unprecedented and heroic efforts that frontline workers made to ensure that all of us could be as safe as possible by maximizing those protections through an immunization program that was unparalleled quite frankly across the country. And to all of those who are in our acute care system all of those who have worked tirelessly to ensure that our supply chains remain open then 90% of truckers that have been going back and forth within our communities and across borders to bring important and essential supplies to our front door I thank and to all of you who have been patient and intolerant of some intolerance over the past number of weeks I thank you as well. We can agree to disagree but we should not be disagreeable. I believe all British Columbians have gone through the past two years. All of us have made sacrifices and I believe it's that collective effort that's put us in the position today where we can relieve these restrictions and look forward to better days ahead and with that I want to thank again Dr Henry for her work and allow her to finish this presentation by giving you some of the details on the restrictions that will be lifted effective at 11.59 tomorrow. Thank you very much and good afternoon to all of us and in British Columbia who has stepped up and done what we needed to do to protect each other, to protect ourselves to protect our communities and I'm trying to move this forward but it doesn't seem to want to go yet. I will talk while we're doing this. Where we are today is because of what we've done in British Columbia over 55% of our eligible children have received their first dose over 90% of people have at least two doses of vaccine and over 50% of people have got their booster dose and that's something that we need to continue and thankfully we're starting to see now that transmission in our communities and the subsequent hospitalizations are starting to come down. We are in the place that we are and we've made these decisions based on the best science happening in British Columbia right now and we are able to make the changes now as a result of the efforts that people throughout British Columbia have made to get vaccinated to follow all of the public health measures and to take steps to protect ourselves and those around us. So today we're going to continue that transition. Is there some way that you guys can advance this? There we go. All right. Let's go to the next slide and it is, as I said, because we did the right things for each other and particularly because of the high rates of protection we have through immunization that we are in the place that we are right now and if we can move ahead this is just some of the images and we'll go through these quickly because we want to get to the meat of it so the next couple of slides are reflections from people in our community of why and how important it was for people to get this protection not only for themselves but to look after those around them and particularly as we know those who have been most differentially affected by this pandemic including our seniors and elders and if we go to the next slide how important it has been in so many of our communities around the province that we've done this for each other that we've worn masks when it's important that we've stayed away and vaccinated so where we are right now if we go to the next slide is we are shifting our response to a long-term COVID-19 management strategy that's focused on those key things that keep us safe including immunization and focusing attention on the things that we do for ourselves based on our own risk and the risk in our community around us and the specific actions that we all need to take at risk of severe infection and we know that remains our elders, our seniors people who have immune compromising conditions but we also need to move into recovery as we're in this transition phase we are not out of this pandemic in British Columbia in Canada or globally and we know there will be continuing pressure on this virus to mutate into a new variant a variant that may evade some of the immune benefits that we have right now but we need to continue to monitor as well the balance of our population health that the restrictions that we have in place have caused and we need to be ready to respond to the ongoing waves and troughs as we get through this next few months with our very high level of community immunity and as we move into the next respiratory season in the fall but our goals remain the same that is to minimize the number of serious illness and people dying of COVID-19 and to protect our health care system and importantly to minimize societal disruption and we are at a place today where we can take major steps to do that we still have important tools and we have more and more tools now we know that immunization makes a tremendous difference we also have data now that tells us that that booster dose protects not only from serious illness but it also protects us from infection it is not 100% but good data here that is being presented even now by my colleagues at the VCCDC Dr Skoronski and her team has shown that getting that booster dose gives you an effectiveness of 60% against infection with the Omicron strain that is important that means we will reduce the chances of getting infected and passing it on to others our public health measures some of which will continue will need to continue for the years ahead we have learned how important it is to stay home when we are sick to wear masks on those occasions when we are around people indoors where our testing strategy physical distancing in certain situations and it may be important to develop to keep our case and contact management systems going for the next strain of this virus that arises we have learned about infection prevention and control in healthcare in our workplaces and we will need to continue to manage outbreaks in settings of high risk of serious illness whether it is long-term care or corrections and increasingly we have another tool of treatment that can prevent people who are at risk from having more serious illness if we go to the next slide VCCDC is one of the most vaccinated jurisdictions in the world and we also know from the modeling that we have done looking at the seroprevalence studies that we have been doing systematically over the last two years that we have a very high level of population immunity right now and that is primarily because of vaccination and a small amount from people who have had a recent infection we do know that infection particularly with Omicron can cause a varying level of immunity that may wane quite quickly over time for some people we do know as well that if you get infected with Omicron on the top of having vaccine that you get a very strong booster dose response from that infection and you are very unlikely to have more than a mild illness so those are the things that put us in a place right now where we can move ahead on some of the other activities if we go to the next slide we can see compared to jurisdictions across Canada that we have been effective in our approach and this is just looking at how we have managed to come through the last few weeks with our Omicron wave we have managed to keep our hospitalizations lower so that we can spread them out and manage and not overwhelm our healthcare system and that is because of the measures people have taken to protect themselves and others and our deaths remain low it is the same if we compare ourselves to other jurisdictions around the world in the next slide where we see as well that we have been managed by the work that people have done collectively if we go to the next slide again this is just a comparison of the data that we presented our modeling from the BCCDC modeling group that we presented on January 14th when we put in the additional restrictions and we can see that we have followed that trajectory for hospitalizations and we are now starting to see the decrease in senses so people in hospital with a positive COVID test as we would expect to see because we took the measures that we did and if we go to the next slide our modeling then shows us that we have the ability now with the amount of immunity and the transmission patterns that we are seeing to start lifting the restrictions that we have had in place and the additional ones we have put in place as we are trying to understand the impact that Omicron is going to have so our next slide ensuring balance and easing restrictions is the way that we have gone about this from the very beginning using the data to make sure that we are doing as much as we need to do to keep things to find that balance between infections and opening up so we are going to have an incremental easing of restrictions and orders starting tomorrow and I will give you the details of those in a minute but there will be some things that will remain in place and we will review those in detail prior to middle of March prior to spring break and again before Easter in April we know that for some people what we are doing today will be really fast and it will make them uncomfortable we know as well for others it's not fast enough and they would like to see things going back to as if the virus was no longer here but the reality is that this virus continues to circulate in our community and because we have such a high level of immunity through immunization for most people that doesn't lead to serious illness or hospitalizations and we need to respect and go at their own pace and businesses will need to go at their own pace depending on their own risk as well our immunization campaigns will continue as I've mentioned we now have good data about how important that booster dose is also for protecting against infection right now but also for the future and in addition very shortly we should have new tools in new vaccines including the Novavax vaccine which are more traditional subunit vaccines that will be available for those people who have concerns about mRNA vaccines and we're hoping to hear news about that in the very near future and that will be yet another option to help people get through this phase and protect us going into the future so what is going to continue on our next slide the protective measures that we have used with success here in BC that will continue for now are our mask mandate in indoor public spaces when we have this amount of transmission in our communities and we know that those indoor spaces are where we can transmit more easily that are riskier settings that extra layer protection becomes important we also will continue to use the BC vaccine card as a way of ensuring that we're mitigating that risk in those highest risk indoor settings will rely on the COVID safety plans with the important backbone of the COVID safety plans to allow people to return to offices and workplaces and then starting on February 16th at 11.59pm and the next slide we will be removing restrictions on all of the restrictions on indoor personal gatherings and that will mean that you will make your own decisions based on your risk and the risk in your family of who you will have over into your home and to have in vacation rentals and other properties we are going to be allowing again indoor and outdoor organized gatherings so those are those wedding receptions and parties and celebrations to curtail or put on hold for the last few weeks they will be with the mask mandate and the BC vaccine card be allowed at full capacity and because of the amount of immunity that we have and the protection that we get through those will be able to go to full capacity and no longer have those requirements of remaining at tables so that means mingling and dancing and all of those other important things that we've missed will be back indoor seated events will go back to full capacity we had put in that 50% capacity at movie theaters at dance and sports events that will go back to full capacity as we were before we hit the same omicron wave fitness centers adult sports dance and swimming will also go back to full capacity and will be removing those restrictions we had on tournaments for adults now as things are improving and the risk is going down and importantly restaurants and our food and beverage serving orders restaurants, bars and nightclubs will now be able to reopen and go back in terms of restaurants to full capacity with no limits of people at tables and going back to mingling and being able to have events in restaurants and dancing and it is because we have those layers of protection through the vaccine card that we can go back to full capacity in these settings again so for most people that will start on Thursday morning the 17th although at midnight on the on February 16th the orders that were in place will expire so we do have some protective measures still in place and as I said these will be reviewed to see if any of them or all of them will be in full capacity and we're committing to reviewing them again by March 15th and letting people know where we are then based on the data and the surveillance that we have and again on April 12th prior to the Easter weekend so along with the masks and the vaccine card we will be looking at the increasing visitation and looking at the restrictions that we have on additional social visits in long-term care and education on the reviewing of the guidelines for K-12 and childcare we'll be meeting with faith leaders to review the some remaining restrictions we have in faith communities and there's two orders on child and youth overnight camps and the industrial camps orders that we will be reviewing as well as we move through the next month so that's where we are right now so proud I am of people in British Columbia for stepping up and doing what you have done to take care of each other to follow the guidance that we have we are in an exciting and positive milestone but we have all sacrificed and come through a lot in the last two years and we want to move ahead slowly and cautiously and thoughtfully and we need to do this together and we are expecting each other's comfort levels as we move into this and we build that confidence to come back together again in so many ways that we need so let's take this time to recognize our progress and all that we have done through this pandemic to turn the tide on COVID-19 our long-term sustainable strategy about recovery readiness and respect it's about moving slowly getting back to all of the things that we love it means all of us continuing to be accountable to each other managing our own risks and equally important protecting those around us we are on track and we are progressing well so let's look to tomorrow with hope and know that optimism that we can increasingly start living with this virus and other aspects of our life but we can't lose sight of the fact that we have some ways to go yet the journey ahead will be a challenge and different for all of us but if we continue to respect each other to be kind to each other we will get through this phase of it as well Thank you very much Doctor Henry and good afternoon I will provide an update on BC's rapid test inventory healthcare workers off sick last week and an update on surgical postponements first I want to reiterate the gratitude to all British Columbians who have overwhelmingly done the right thing over the past two years following public health orders and guidance and most importantly getting vaccinated it's because of these efforts by all of us that we are where we are today regarding rapid tests up to the end of February 11, 2020 BC has received 15 million 318,000 and six tests also as of February 11 we had deployed 7,231,358 of these tests to key strategic areas this leaves a current inventory of 8,086,648 as noted in previous weeks 8,648 of the current inventory are not suitable for deployment for take away or personal use and these tests will continue to be used at the discretion of medical health officers in the appropriate settings to manage clusters and outbreaks that leaves 7,528,000 tests that are suitable for self-administered use in addition there's approximately 2,876,470 tests on route to British Columbia and now an additional 9,964,710 tests are scheduled to arrive over the weeks to come but are not yet in transit but we await the additional 9.9 million tests we will be working to deliver the approximately 10.4 million tests that have arrived or are in transit through the following allocations 720,000 to COVID-19 test sites to replenish their supply as you know they've already received millions 200,000 to replenish supply at acute care centers for health care workers and health authority employees 100,000 to support testing visitors and staff in long-term care and assisted living in addition to the approximately 1.74 million they have already received 300,000 to support rural, remote and indigenous communities 300,000 for businesses 3.8 million more tests to K-12 education 2.1 million more test kits for the post-secondary education sector these last allocations related to education marked an important shift as students will be offered in coming weeks the opportunity to take home one five test kit for their and their families future use if they were to become symptomatic assuming the in transit delivery of 2.87 million tests arrived later this week we also anticipate starting distribution at no cost to citizens to the broader community we will begin with seniors carrying on our focus on higher risk individuals but will expand to the broader population as the infantory continues to arrive it's important to remember I know Dr. Henry will remind us that testing continues to be something we do when we have symptoms increased test availability means that more members of the general population 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 higher risk I'll have more to say over the next week and Dr. Henry and I will have more to say on the distribution over the next week with respect to the impact of sickness on healthcare workers we saw a decrease in the number of staff in the short term illness the off sick 15,524 during the week of February 7 to 13 by way of comparison from the previous week we had 17,158 healthcare workers off sick that's 3,438 in Fraser Health 2,932 in Interior Health 1,612 in Northern Health 1,538 in Coastal Health Services Authority 2,181 in Vancouver Coastal Health 3,273 in Island Health and 550 in particular in Interior Health proportionately that continues to be a significant number and while it has come down in the last couple of weeks it continues to be higher than it normally would be this time of year just to be clear these are not this is not illness from COVID-19 we're talking about it's all illness including COVID-19 in comparison to similar periods in previous years it's a product come down to about 20% higher and now here's our surgical renewal update health authorities report 6,006 surgeries were completed from January 16 to 22nd we want to talk about the most recent period from February 6 to 12 health authorities postponed 320 non-urgent scheduled surgeries that's 70 in Fraser Health 231 in the Interior Health Authority 10 in Island Health and 6 in the Provincial Health Services Authorities no surgeries were postponed in Vancouver Coastal Health all the efforts we've made to stop COVID's rapid spread from using our COVID's sense to getting vaccinated to consistently following public health guidance have made a difference because of those efforts where it's safe to do so health authorities have been able to start again and completing surgeries that were postponed we said patients would get calls to rebook their surgeries they will, all of them will and that is exactly what is starting to happen patients are starting to get their calls patients are starting to get their surgeries there will continue to be some postponements because of staffing or the need to create capacity but what is vital right now is we all understand that our work is not done and you can see that it is not done we are making a difference that matters and as we do this work that we do so well we make the essential difference in the lives of all patients who are waiting for those calls and we think of them today and all of the health care workers who continue to do exceptional work throughout our health care system and with that I'll invite the Premier back to the podium we are happy to take your questions Thank you Dr. Henry, Minister Dix and I know there will be a range of questions but the person to answer them will step up and offer a solution to whatever conundrum you have before you Thank you Premier as a reminder to media on the phone line please press star 1 to enter the queue you are limited to one question and one follow up First question today is from Richard Zisman Global News I look forward to solutions many other jurisdictions in Canada as you are acutely aware are getting rid of vaccine cards ranging from Alberta all the way to Quebec and the time line largely through this month and into March why is British Columbia one of the outliers here in terms of keeping the vaccine card in place is this about science or is it about confidence trying to get people to still get vaccinated I believe it's a combination of all of those variables as you know the vaccine card uptake in British Columbia and it gives people comfort when they go out into social settings particularly seated events the people that are around them have taken the same measure to protect themselves I'll allow Dr Henry to talk about why this science is important but again British Columbians have been comfortable to be outliers on a number of fronts and we've done so because we want to ensure that the sacrifices that people have made over the past two years are not in vain and therefore we've addressed all of these issues going back to 2020 and we'll continue to do that I believe that British Columbians want us to chart a BC course based on the variables that come into play in our communities based on the level of acceptance of the measures that have come forward as all three of us have said repeatedly the success of our approach to COVID has been a direct result of British Columbians acknowledging that they can take personal actions they can get vaccinated they can follow public health guidelines they can wash their hands they can stay at home when they're sick and most importantly they can respect other people's comfort levels and the immunization card has a role to play in that I don't know if you want to add the science piece to that so we've always had a bit of a different approach in use of the BC vaccine card and it's for very specific settings that are the higher risk settings that have to take their mass off for a period of time or when you're in settings that are indoors with people that you don't know and you don't know their vaccine status so those are important things and what we've done is we have taken off restrictions on capacity limits for example because we have the mitigation of the BC vaccine card so we're different from Ontario from Quebec in that regard so it has played a role it has played a role in reducing and not eliminating the risk of transmission and we know especially with Omicron that it can still be transmitted although that is less and particularly less in people who have their booster dose on board as well but we also know that in those indoor settings where it's applied where we can have quite large numbers of people together and we're not going to get people getting seriously ill and ending up in hospital at the same degree so there are reasons that we're keeping it in place but really it being able to take away capacity limits and still have mitigation of risk in those settings so we've used it somewhat differently having said that we'll also be reassessing when its value is no longer needed and it has to do with the amount of transmission we're seeing in our communities and where we no longer need to mitigate that risk and people are more comfortable with being together in those indoor discretionary settings Richard do you have a follow up? I'm just wondering what enforcement tools will be in place especially when it comes to mask wearing we know it was already challenging at places like connects games so you add night clubs and bars and other weddings where people are going to want to get face to face how do you enforce the mask mandate and how quickly could the province pivot back if we see a resurgence in COVID in the fall Dr Henry as you have alluded to in the past could we see these restrictions come back as respiratory season comes back next fall in terms of enforcement we've also seen very much people understand the use of masks in those settings they feel comfortable with them all of us have gotten used to wear masks so I don't believe enforcement is going to be a large I know there are some places that are trying to make points around these things but really people speak with their comfort level and we expect people to do that and to manage their own risk in most settings and as I talked about we're not out of this pandemic yet we are very much I believe in a transition phase and so much of that has to do with the amount of immunity that we have here and across the country but it's not the same everywhere around the world so it is inevitable that we will see some waning of immunity that will see new variants arise and so what we are focused on is how do we manage this risk respiratory illness along with influenza along with RSV that we expect to have impacts in our communities during the respiratory season and I hope it will be the fall and not before that but what we need to look at is who is most at risk who will be most at risk during that period of time given what variants we are seeing so we will be really focusing on our surveillance systems on making sure we are continuing our vaccine effectiveness studies on understanding who is most at risk from whatever the next variant is that arises but I don't believe we will have to go back to broad societal measures unless something dramatically different happens we have a baseline of immunity that we know protects people from serious illness so what we will focus on is how do we best protect those people who are most at risk so whether it is seniors in long-term care and adding it into the measures that we take around other outbreaks in long-term care homes adjusting our communicable disease plans that we do for managing outbreaks of measles for example in schools and adding COVID into those types of strategies that we have going into the fall and we will be spending more time with people on how do you understand your own risk and when we are seeing transmission in your community what you do to make sure you are yourself safe so there's lots of things that we will do to support people who are more at risk of severe illness and our hope and expectation is we won't have to have broad societal measures because we know they have health and well-being impacts as well anybody else wants to next question is from Bender Sajen CTV Hi there Dr. Henry I heard you talk there about health measures that will continue for years ahead just wondering if you can shed some light on what those measures would be specifically would it be to protect those higher risk populations or are we talking about perhaps mouse Yeah no we are talking about the basics of how we protect ourselves and you know these are the things I have said hundreds and hundreds of times things like staying home when you are sick and we have learned that it's not that easy for many people so things like having mandatory sick leave policies make a big difference in being able to support that it means washing your hands regularly covering your mouth when you cough wearing masks in certain situations and that is culturally what's been done in other communities and I think we now all have learned that so it may be important if there's high levels of transmission but it will be based on guidance and advice not on orders at least going forward that's our expectation so all of those important things that we do to prevent transmission of influenza of other things will be important and we'll just need to reinforce those during periods of time where we see higher respiratory illness transmission Do you have a follow up Bender? Yeah just wondering when it comes to masks I know some other places are kind of dropping masks requirements for younger kids. I'm just wondering with masks still required in indoor public places for those 5 plus now in BC is there any chance we could see by age group those requirements being lifted or do you envision it being all at once and just also for the premier you're aware of course of the ongoing protests are you worried at all that this could make protesters think either that their actions have worked or that it could further embolden other actions? I hope we've shown that it's the actions that all of us have taken over the last months and two years now that have made a difference to getting us where we are in terms of masks it is I think really important I've talked about this quite a few times you have higher rates of transmission in the community and there's still really high rate now all the different layers become more important as those rates go down it becomes less important in many different situations to have every single one of those layers so we will be looking at mask wearing and where we can switch to it being that recommendation for when you're in certain settings in certain conditions versus having a mandate that requires it in public indoor spaces at all times so that's something that we'll be reviewing in March and or April depending on where we get to in terms of transmission in the community by March So with respect to the restrictions that will be lifted tomorrow those were designed to be temporary those were designed to address the Omicron wave which we had no knowledge of when it arrived in December and the decision to pick this day to make this announcement Dr. Henry Minister Dix talked about this in early January this is not brought upon the public today by any protest, any horn honking, any encampments it was brought about because this was the plan we had when we brought in the restrictions to protect people at a time of uncertainty you'll remember on Christmas how uncertain we were case counts were spiking hospitalizations were increasing and we were uncertain about how we were going to be addressing yet another wave of COVID-19 but we said at the beginning these were temporary measures to protect people we said in early January that we would revisit the question just prior to the family day long weekend and that's exactly what we've done we have been driven from the beginning on the best available science to protect people and to ensure that all of us got out of this together and poll after poll after poll for two years has demonstrated that British Columbians are comfortable with an approach that includes them which we've done with faith groups the three of us have engaged with faith leaders from multitude of denominations for the past two years to ensure that we're trying to get the balance right so people can continue to do the things that are important to them we've been managing sector by sector whether it be K to 12 childcare the construction industry hospitality trying to engage with people to get the best outcomes possible and that's what we'll continue to do it's been successful to the greatest degree possible because everyone bought into it and that again is confirmed time after time there are those that disagree narrow sliver of the population disagrees and as I said earlier we can disagree but don't be disagreeable the encampments in Ottawa the occupation of our nation's capital is disappointing to every Canadian to see a cache of automatic weapons seized at a Canadian border point is disturbing for all Canadians and I believe that the vast majority want to get along respect each other and again determine everyone's comfort level and get on with your lives that's what we all aspire to do each and every day and that's what we want to continue to do here in BC Myra Whiten, the TTIE Hi, thank you for taking my question I'm a bit curious about you noting that everyone has to go on at their own pace a lot of British Columbians I've spoken to are expressing that they feel they don't have the tools to make an accurate risk decision especially those that are immunocompromised who feel that even Bailey activities are moving at a pace that is putting them at risk without their consent or having another option as these measures loosen gradually are you planning to make rapid tests available widely to the public in the immediate future and also are there any plans to open up PCR testing eligibility back to the general public not just high risk individuals so a couple of things on that it is really important that we recognize that there are people who even with vaccination still remain at risk and those are people who also are at risk of many other things and many cases they are having to take additional precautions for themselves and we need to understand that and I've talked about this quite a few times especially since Omicron how important it is for us to recognize there may be people at risk that we don't even know that are our colleagues at work that are our friends in our social networks and so that's why we are saying respect people's comfort levels why we have some of those important measures in place right now like mask wearing in certain situations like the COVID safety plans because we're not through a period yet where the risk is low enough and therefore though we will have to think about how do we not have to put on broad restrictions on everybody so that we can be inclusive of people who have immune compromising conditions and that will mean that it will be important in some situations that mask wearing will be something that some people do on an ongoing basis and keeping gathering small we look at making that choice about going to a social gathering versus focusing on other settings like our work setting and our school setting so those are personal choices that we will have to make as we understand the broader context of transmission and we're working around with tools to help support people and how to make those decisions and I'll be talking more about that in the next few weeks yes we are as Minister Dix indicated a lot more of the at-home rapid tests to be available in the coming weeks and we're going to focus on making sure they're available for free to people who are in those higher risk groups, particularly by age or people who have been identified as clinically extremely vulnerable we know that we have distribution now that's going to start it already that we'll be going out for children through schools so they will be more available and people who are immune compromised they are people that may benefit from the treatments that are coming online as well and that's where the connection to PCR testing becomes so important so we will be ensuring that those people have priority access to PCR testing if they develop symptoms and these are all things that we're tight trading right now as we're coming through this wave but it will be really important as we're going into the next wave so that we know we have systems in place for people who are clinically vulnerable to COVID that they can get a test rapidly and get access to treatment rapidly so those are things we're working on right now Myra, do you have a follow-up? Yeah Dr. Henry over the weekend yesterday we saw 17 people pass away due to COVID just in that three-day period as Omicron continues to spread as you're aware about one in ten cases conservatively end up with long-term health complications including long COVID and other post-viral illness with the gradual easing of restrictions how much of that long-term illness and depth should British Columbians expect public health officials to accept as the restrictions continue to open a benchmark or a figure that would give you pause as you re-evaluate the restrictions that are in place Yeah, so really challenging questions and when we look at the people who have died it is sadly overwhelmingly people who are seniors and elders some of them in long-term care and of course we count in long-term care who dies within 30 days of a positive COVID test so many people are dying with COVID not necessarily because of it but it is important to recognize that but we are also seeing unvaccinated people in particular who don't have that degree of protection from severe illness who are dying and some of them younger in their 30s and 40s and that's important to recognize that we do know that with the high rates of transmission in the community this small this number of people that we're seeing could be so much worse if we didn't have that number of people protected through vaccination I'm not being very eloquent on how I'm saying this but it is a reminder to us that this is not an innocuous virus and it can have very severe effects particularly in people who don't have a strong immune response don't have the protection of vaccination and even for some people who are immune compromised or who are older so we do need to continue to take measures to protect them and that's why you're seeing the measures that we still have in place in long-term care to reduce risk and the vaccine card things like mask wearing and staying away if we're ill ourselves a couple of things that we're learning about long COVID people who are infected and there's still a lot unknown about Omicron and long-term effects some people do get very sick it's not an innocuous illness as I've said a number of times but we do know the risk of having long-term symptoms that persist when you're vaccinated is at least half and we've seen that through other waves seems to hold true for Delta or Surfer Omicron as well so vaccination again is another thing that protects you from long COVID really important we still don't have a good understanding of children and longer-term impacts of this virus and infections in children so that's an important thing that we're still trying to get information about and we'll need to monitor this over the long haul it does remind us that we have downsides of opening up but we also know that there's societal impacts on health and well-being and mental health from some of the restrictions that are in place so it is finding that balance between those two Next question is from Les Lane Times Colonist Thank you Dr Henry our health professionals in BC still under orders to get vaccinated by March 24th or is that aspect of it under review or the other stuff through March and April? No, the healthcare worker immunization is still in place as is the work with the colleges around registered health professionals and I think it's a really important thing that we all it's not just for getting through this wave right now it's for that longer-term protection as we learn to live with this virus over time but it is still in place the order will be published very soon for regulated health professionals and I will say one of the things that I was looking at very carefully with the colleges is having other options available so I mentioned that we are hopeful that we'll hear from Health Canada about two other vaccines that will be available hopefully very shortly the Novavax vaccine and Medicago which are really important vaccines for people who either can't or aren't able to take the mRNA vaccines follow-up Les? Yes, you've been quite clear that we're nowhere near out of this it's going to run for a year or more and that another wave, at least one is expected is there any you're confident that you're also confident that you need the same level of mandates and restrictions to deal with what's coming up is it just purely the vaccines that lead you to that confidence that you don't have to slip on some of this and go back to restrictions next fall? I guess it's a combination of things it's understanding immunity and what we're learning about it longer-term immunity and how that is maintained is a different variant of the virus being Omicron there's many things we don't know whether we'll need a booster dose whether that's everybody or just people who are most at risk and people who have these stronger immune systems will be longer lasting some of the decisions we made quite early on in the immunization program have proved to be very important in longer-term protection and now the interval between dose two and the booster dose has shown to be really important but there's lots of things we don't yet know that I'm spending quite a lot of time looking into and with my colleagues things like the nasal spray vaccines that are under development could that be an option as a booster dose to help stimulate our mucosal immunity in the nose and the back of the throat and it has been attacking for example and does that lead to a strong enough boost of the cell mediated immunity so there's many things that we don't yet know but we do we can see that it is that high level of vaccination that has allowed us to weather this Omicron wave and we did put in some restrictions but we didn't have to do things like lockdowns and other things because we had that high level of immunity and we layered on some of the other measures in certain settings as well and that made a difference we also need to really we've understood and we've come to see how fragile our health care system is and I know the minister is working very hard on that to make sure that we have that capacity to be able to care for people with a surge that is inevitable to come but I do believe knowing what I know about pandemics and how we've weathered them and all of the scenarios that we have seen over the last two years that we will see sort of an oscillating and yes there will be waves and troughs of COVID it's likely to have different impacts in different years depending on how much the virus changes over time Rob Buffham CTV Vancouver Island Rob or you on mute OK we are moving on to our last question Mira Baines CBC OK I'm hoping to get answers in English and in French Doctor Henry you're indicating that the current safety rules for the K-12 system will be reviewed in March and April but how likely is it that those restrictions will be listed by the end of the school year their parents in BC who say they've never been inside the school their child attend to volunteer to meet a teacher or go watch an event So I can tell you that there's likely to be some changes sooner rather than later and we from working with my team and the BCCDC have been working with the K-12 steering committee and looking at exactly this how do we make it as normal as possible to recognize that that's so important for growth and development especially for younger children and now that we have vaccination available to all school age children the risk profile changes and we've learned from Omicron there's no such thing as zero risk in a school setting in any setting really so it's about how do we manage it in a way that allows for full participation in school activities without some of those restrictions on things like spectators at sports and we'll be hearing more from the education committee and the education minister around that very soon So these are all questions that I don't have answers for you yet but that we are looking at how do we make sure that the K-12 experience aligns with what we're seeing in the community and is the best that we can do for kids that we are very aware that graduation will be coming up in a few months and how can we make that again aligned with what we're seeing in risk in the community and a more normal experience for grads this year too In French We've taken a lot of decisions today but we need to live in the present that is to follow the measures that are in place to reduce the transmission of COVID-19 to protect people The education sector will work with public health on these questions in the weeks and months to come and will take I think the decisions at the right time at the same time during the few weeks to come we will distribute 5.8 million fast tests in a system of education whether it be kindergarten in the second year or university or college we will also do it to increase the protection for everyone so this work continues but we need to live in the present and we will work together to increase the transmission in the future but not today Mary do you have a follow-up? Yes and again in English and in French Dr Henry at this point 55% of kids 5-11 in BC have received one dose of a COVID vaccine is that number an acceptable level for you and what if anything you want to try to get that percentage up and will it be necessary to make sure more kids get vaccinated? Yes obviously that's not an acceptable level we do really want to protect young children as I mentioned we still don't have a lot of insight into the long-term impacts on younger children from infection even though it does thankfully seem to be relatively mild in younger kids it is important we do know that vaccination is safe in that age group the pediatric formulation is working well lots of kids are now getting dose 2 and that's important it's important to help get back to those normal activities as we're still seeing transmission and to normalize things for young kids in schools as well as their social connections are doing quite a few things it's very community dependent as the booster doses have decreased and we're making sure that the pharmacies are ramping up to be able to provide booster doses for adults and older children we're looking at more targeted clinics for younger children where they can have all of their questions answered and I really do want to encourage parents we know lots now about the safety of these pediatric and how well they work and talk to your healthcare provider talk to your pediatrician your pharmacist your public health nurse get your questions answered and it's very important to protect our youngest kids as well and just to say there are appointments available today at the get vaccinated website or call 1-833-838-2323 and get your appointment today because for example 93.5% I believe of adults to receive their first dose immunization against COVID-19 93.5% but we think 6.5% unvaccinated is too high and why do we think that because you're 30 times as likely 30 times 30 as likely to get into critical care if you're not vaccinated so c'est le moment d'être vacciné qu'ils sont déjà vaccinés entre 5 de 5 à 11 ans sont un nombre important il faut toujours y travailler je pense qu'il y a beaucoup de gens dans des dizaines de milliers qui ont reçu le deuxième dose de 5 à 11 ans il faut continuer cette affaire on va nous offrir essayer de communiquer surtout avec les parents pour assurer que la haute haute c'est une façon pour protéger des écoles bien entendu mais aussi la communauté les grands-parents etc donc on va continuer ces efforts il y a quand il y en a 55 on va être à 56 et puis au ton de suite mais même quand on est à 93 on va être à 94 on va continuer sa travail parce que c'est tellement important Thank you very much Thank you