 We will start by heading over to Minister Adrian Dix in Vancouver. Good morning, my name is Adrian Dix, I'm BC's Minister of Health, I'm joined here in Vancouver by the Honourable Jennifer Whiteside, BC's Minister of Education and in Victoria by Dr Bonnie Henry, BC's Provincial Health Officer. Minister Whiteside and myself are honoured to be here on the territories of the Musqueam, of the Squamish, of the Slewa Tooth, First Nations were honoured to be here on their lands. We have been speaking people of the Songhees and the Esquimalt First Nations. In today's briefing, Dr Henry will be speaking first about the BC's response to the COVID-19 pandemic and a number of issues arising from that today. And then Minister Whiteside will give an update on the COVID-19 pandemic and the education system and the restart of schools and then I'll finish with an update on a number of issues and then we'll be taking your questions. So with that, it's my honour as always and thank you very much and good morning. As I don't need to say today, SARS-CoV-2 or what causes COVID-19 continues to persist to evolve and of course to surprise us in many ways. We cannot predict with certainty exactly what is going to happen and we've seen that as things have evolved over the last two years. But we can and we must make educated or informed guesses or decisions based on the imperfect information we do have. It's not mathematical certainty but it is based on the best information that we have, the best information from what we know from history around different coronaviruses and other infections around immunology and around what we're seeing around the world. It is the best information we have but it is by necessity imperfect and in that context, that is where we are moving ahead now with how we're going to manage to get through this next wave, the Omicron wave here of the pandemic. We have all seen that the virus continues to spread, that Omicron is spreading very rapidly and I said last time that where we had one or two generations of separation now, everybody, I believe, knows somebody in their social circle who has been affected by COVID-19. That means this is going to be a challenging month but it doesn't mean that we need to stop everything. We know that the basics of foundations of what we have in place, the things that we have learned to do and the measures that we have in place currently are going to help us get through this month. As we've done since the beginning , we need to create the impact of this virus to make sure we're doing our best to stop sickness and death, to make sure we're supporting our health care system so everybody can get the care they need and to minimize the negative impacts of everything that we're doing on society. So we all need to continue to work together in this storm, in this version of the storm that we're facing right now. And as we've done in the past, we've made the foundation for how to get through this, this Omicron Rave. While some things are different, a shorter incubation period, which means some of those tools that we've relied on, we can no longer use effectively. But much remains the same. Staying home, staying away from others if we're sick, wearing a mask, wearing a good fitting mask, especially when we're around others. Vaccination, vaccination has made it possible for us to make sure that the impact can be mitigated in all of us. It protects us, it protects our families, it protects our communities. So making sure that everybody has their first and second dose and as you're eligible, getting your booster dose. Keeping your distance from others in those places where we don't know people, especially indoor places, washing our hands regularly, keeping our gatherings small, keeping our homes safe, to mitigate and to prevent transmission in some of the highest risk settings. Earlier this week I spoke as well about the importance of businesses reactivating the COVID safety plans. That was a strategy that we use very early on in this pandemic to really develop specific strategies for each specific business or industry. And these worked, these helped us get through the last number of waves and helped us get through this one too. It becomes more and more important as we're seeing that increased transmission in our communities and these safety plans are a measure to allow you to keep operating in the face of a significant portion of workers who may be unable to come in because they're ill themselves now with COVID. It is important that every business take this step now, which is why today I'm putting an order in place requiring COVID safety for all businesses in British Columbia. WorkSafe BC, we've been working with many different industry tables and had many discussions over the past week or so. And WorkSafe BC is working with us in partnership again on these and has reactivated their supports for businesses and is available to address your questions. As an employer, we know that you have an obligation to do all you can to keep your employees safe and I know the vast majority of businesses have stepped up without hesitation and any have continued all of the measures from their COVID-19 safety plans from the previous iterations. This is about activating all of those layers of protection again to reduce the impact of the Omicron circulation in our communities and making sure we can continue to operate our businesses. It's about business continuity and we know that this has proven to work to keep businesses open and to safely manage. This order is specific to industry and businesses and of course does not apply as it didn't in the previous iterations to childcare or post-secondary or the K-12 where we have additional other plans in place that are unique to those settings. These are the plans that saw us through up to now, includes things like barriers and reduce crowding and making sure we can reduce the mixing of staff if need be, working from home if that's possible and facilitating workers staying home if they are ill. These are the things that will work again this time. This week our K-12 school communities have been working hard to put enhanced protocols in place and to plan for how we're going to weather this storm and ensure that we're able to provide those essential educational services to our children across BC. I want to give my gratitude and thanks to all of the educators and school staff and parent groups and families across the province for what you have done in this past week putting things together and will continue to do as all students are returning to classrooms next week. It is essential and it's a priority for all of us that we keep schools open and functioning for our children. It's also important to remember that all of the settings that we have in school have been proven to be places where they can learn and interact with others and have that important emotional, physical and intellectual growth and development in a way that is safe for everybody in that setting and safer than many of the unstructured settings that children are in outside of the school environment. We know that there's a lot of anxiety and it is always a challenge when we have more illness in our communities, how that's going to affect schools and we've been working very hard this week to make sure that we have contingency plans in place for if staff are ill, if educators are ill and for students and public health will be working as we have with all of our schools and our school districts to make sure that we can support you in the safe return to full classes starting next week. We know that it's always going to be a challenge and we're going to have to adapt to things as they arise. I know that many parents are anxious about children coming back to school, particularly if you have vulnerable family members at home and I just want to reassure you that the things that we have in place will do our best to mitigate any of the challenges that we have and it's important to remember as well, we have very high rates of COVID-19 and we encourage all the children who are eligible in schools now to get vaccinated as well. School is essential and we know it is the best place for children to be and I know that the educators and school staff around the province are very excited to welcome children back into our schools next week. We have also seen the remarkable resilience and adaptability of our school communities and I know that's what is important to us and I know that we have a lot of work to do and I know that we will undoubtedly be some rocky times in the next few weeks. On December 21st, we laid out in some more detail our plan for our expanded use of rapid antigen tests here in BC and we've said that we focus on, particularly through to the middle and end of January, that we're going to be focusing on five key areas, making sure that we have a lot of testing sites and testing sites and that has been incredibly important as many people have noted in the past few weeks as we reached our capacity both from testing, from the lab equipment, from the personnel and the reagents. We know that PCR testing is the most accurate but it has a limit and we've reached that limit in British Columbia. It's still an important measure and PCR testing needs to be used for the testing sites and for those where it makes a difference in terms of their clinical management and I'll talk a little bit more about that in a minute but because we've had the rapid antigen tests of the various different types of tests that we've had here in BC, we've been able to supplement our testing sites with the rapid antigen testing and that has enabled us to make sure that people who do need a test can get access. We've had a lot of people who have a lot of antigen tests and other more vulnerable communities to make sure that we can tell when Omicron in particular is entering those communities and support those communities in taking actions and of course we've been using them in an ongoing way which we are expanding in businesses and other organizations. There has been significant progress deploying these tests since we talked about this earlier and I'll give you some more of these details but just to say that we have deployed close to 100,000 to long-term care, to support long-term care facilities, to testing sites, we're now over 400 close to a half a million tests supporting our testing sites across the province and we've got many out to rural and remote communities working with the First Nations Health Authority. So the tests that we have have been doing, we are continuing to access tests for businesses and organizations as we get more of them in. As well, we are using rapid tests to help us understand where outbreaks and clusters are happening, including being able to support our K-12 system in the coming weeks on outbreak management under the direction of the medical health officers as we have been doing. We do expect additional rapid tests will be available. You've heard the announcement from the federal government, a portion of those tests will be coming to British Columbia. But let me make it clear, they are not here yet and when they begin to arrive, there are many different types of tests that will be arrived. Some of them will be suitable for self-administration, the lateral flow tests and the at-home tests. Those are the ones that we have been waiting for for some time and as they continue to arrive, our priority areas and one of those priority areas, of course, will be to support continuing in-school education in the K-12 system. We will be starting when they start to arrive late next week, we are hearing, for being able to test symptomatic teachers and school staff and in schools across the province. And the Ministry of Health and Education and BCCDC and school districts are working together, starting this week and tell these arrive to make sure that we have the systems in place to be able to do that and the protocols for self-testing. It is our expectation subject to more of these at-home tests being available that will be able to expand that in our school communities. And I have talked about this for some months, being able to provide it for kids, for children who are symptomatic in the school system and eventually, as we get more available tests, to be able to support families to do the tests at home on symptomatic members of the family, the children, to determine whether they should be going to school or not. We have made significant progress deploying these tests despite challenging winter weather and all the other things that have been thrown at us over this holiday season. We are hoping to break down the many tests that we have that come in kits that are too large to be used in an individual basis and replacing the nasal pharyngeal swabs with the nasal swabs that are needed for a number of the different types of settings that we have. We expect our supply of tests to increase in the weeks ahead. Just yesterday, we were advised by Canada that we are getting a number in the next few months as our supply increases and as we go into the next few months, we will be able to expand it for symptomatic people and for people to be able to do that type of testing at home. But the key focus in the coming week will be, as I said, on supporting K-12 and return to school. Here in BC, rapid tests are being used to slow or stop outbreaks and to allow people to go to work. To help us understand if they are positive that somebody has COVID or that COVID is in an area or a community. They are not being used as a green light to allow people to socialize as we have seen being used in other places. Every rapid test has been allocated to settings where the risk is highest and where the test will have the greatest impact. That has been our focus here in Canada and globally. I wanted to take a few minutes to talk about getting tested. We know and I have said this, not everybody needs a test. This week we have seen some frustration of people wanting access to both PCR tests and rapid tests and taking that out on healthcare workers in our testing centres. Please know that we have a limited supply and we do need to use tests where they are most appropriate to protect people, to make sure that people can go back to essential workplaces like healthcare workers and to be able to identify people who may be at risk for more severe illness so that they can get additional treatments that they may need. We are focusing on people over the age of 55, people who are pregnant, people who are living in high-risk settings like hospitals, long-term care, assisted living in many remote and rural communities, and people with higher risk medical conditions. Those are people who may need these tests to help us keep them out of hospital, make sure they get the treatments that are available as quickly as possible. If you are fully vaccinated at lower risk and have mild symptoms, you don't need a test. Omicron is spreading widely in our communities. If you have those mild symptoms, whether it's a runny nose, a cough, and you've been out in connection with other people, it's very likely that you have COVID. What you need to do is stay home and stay away from others and manage your symptoms. There's information on the BCCDC website about what you can do to help get out of your infectiousness and the period of your illness. For most people, we are seeing now with this new strain that the onset of illness is within a very short period of time after exposure, so about three days, and that the illness is mostly mild if you're vaccinated and you have that level of protection, and that it tends to go away within three to five days. So we are saying to people, if you have mild illness and you're vaccinated, stay home and away from others for five days, and then you can go about your business as long as you're feeling better and you no longer have a fever or symptoms. And the things that you need to be aware of is that you need to continue to wear a mask when you're around other people, a well-fitting mask at all times, and to avoid those high-risk settings where the off chance that you need is a test, as I said, if they are a limited resource and we need to use them to ensure people who need them have access, whether it's healthcare workers and long-term care and access to medications. So there will be more information coming out, and I encourage people to look at the BCCDC website to look at how you can assess yourself for whether you have COVID or not, and for those who have rapid tests, how you can report that to the BCCDC website. And I encourage people to look at the BCCDC website to look at the BCCDC website as well, and I encourage people, this is a very challenging time of the year, and O Macron has just made that even more so for all of us. The days are cold and still short, and this has put an added burden on us all. While these challenges do persist, I encourage you to find that optimism and hope that we have, that we're going to be able to work together and work together with each other. Find an opportunity to go outside. I know it's very cold in many places, but go outside, go for a walk, or call a friend. Call a person you haven't talked to in the last few days or weeks. Connect with people. We know that connection is really important, especially this time of the year. Appreciate and offer the small kindnesses to each other that brighten our day and make sure we get through this as well. We will make it through this O Macron surge and we will get through this storm of this pandemic, and we'll do it together, and we'll do it as we always have, by being kind and being calm and being safe. I'd now like to turn over to Minister White-Side. Thank you very much, Dr Henry. Good morning, everyone. My name is Jennifer White-Side. I'm the Minister of Education, and it's an honor to be here with you today. I want to start by acknowledging that we have all been living through this pandemic for now what feels like a lifetime, and yet here we find ourselves again in a new and very different phase with this latest variant. For younger children, going to school during a pandemic is all they've ever experienced. And for older children and youth, they know full well what they've experienced and know full well how different these past two years have been to other than any before. And to all of our, for all of our school staff, our educators, support staff, principals, vice-principals, our superintendents, trustees, all of our education partners, your work over the past two years has just been extraordinary. As you have put children at the center of everything that we do in our K-12 system. And it's been a challenging time for all of our school staff, our district staff, our trustees for families, and of course for students. And I know that this is an anxious time for parents and families. And I know that everyone on the front lines is doing their very best as we continue to work together to meet the challenges posed by Omicron. As we've shown in the past two years, our education system is ready and able to adapt to keep our kids safe and in school. As directed by Dr. Henry, the return to in-class learning was postponed until January 10th. And this has provided time for schools and school districts to adapt to the changing pandemic. And we have been working this week with our K-12 education steering committee, which is made up of education, education, education, education, education is made up of educators and parents, support workers, school leaders, trustees, indigenous rights holders, ministry staff, and of course public health experts. And we have been working with many superintendents and local school staff as well. As we experience the Omicron variant move through our communities, we're focused on protecting students and education workers. What we know is that since the pandemic, we've been working with our schools to make sure that we have a reflection of what happens in the community. And so we know that students and staff in our schools will be affected by this latest variant. And that's why we want to ensure health and safety measures are in place so children and youth can learn in school to the best extent possible. And that has been the basis of the work this week by school districts, that has been done will mean that students can be welcomed back to school next week to in-person learning on Monday with additional safety measures in place. And while our goal is to have students learning in classrooms, we recognize that there will be likely temporary shifts in how and where some students learn. This means that learning at home may need to be in place for some students over the coming weeks or months. So on Monday, schools will be open with reinforced safety measures in place, including the provision of three-layer disposable masks, which are the masks that look like these ones. And those are the masks that we have been providing in schools throughout the pandemic. And we've worked to ensure that districts have a good supply of those masks to reduce crowding, to stagger break times. We will be shifting to virtual assemblies, virtual staff meetings. We will be restricting visitors to schools for the time being. And I just want, I would like to say about masks that we know that we've been advised by public health, of course, that masks are an important layer of protection. And that students and staff will continue to use this important layer of protection while they're in school. And I think one of the things that students come back to class is a refresher on the proper way to use a mask, the importance of using a mask, how it can help keep everybody safe as well as a refresher on the overall safety plan. I mean, we do ask parents to send their child to school with a three-layer mask. However, we will ensure that these masks are available at school for anyone who needs one. And we will also check staff as well to stay home and stay home if they have any symptoms. When it comes to communicating with the school community what's happening in our schools with COVID, I understand that parents and caregivers want to know what's happening with COVID in schools. And so we have worked with public health on a system to ensure that we can continue to provide communication to parents. This is going to look, though, very closely at what has been in place before because as public health has advised us, individual case management and contact tracing is no longer a helpful tool for us in tracking cases in schools. We need a proxy to understand what may be happening with COVID in schools. And so that proxy will be school attendance. Schools will be monitoring attendance rates closely and will notify public health and the school community if attendance dips notably below typical rates for this time of year. And that will trigger a response from public health which may include investigation. It might include the use of rapid tests to get a better understanding of what's happening on the ground. I do want to assure everyone that, of course, our school medical health officers work very closely with school district leadership on a regular basis, a day-to-day basis, and that, of course, will continue. To help with effective information sharing, parents are encouraged to report rapid test results to public health and to ensure they contact the school if their child is staying home because of illness. By working together, we will be able to best understand what's happening in our school communities and to determine how and what to communicate with parents. I want to say that I know that there is a lot of anxiety right now and I know that there will be bumps in the future in the next few weeks. It's a difficult time for students, staff and families and this pandemic continues to present challenges for all of us in our communities. The work that our schools and our district staff have done over this week with our partners has helped to develop plans and prepare for continuity of learning in the event that a school needs to shift to home-based learning for a period of time. So our goal there is to minimize the risk of COVID-19 to learning to the greatest extent possible. I want to say as well that vaccination of course remains such a critical tool to keep our schools and communities safe and it is terrific news that so many teachers have been vaccinated in BC. We know the vaccination rate amongst teachers is upwards of 95 percent according to the teachers federation. And we know that last year public health prioritized many school staff for the first time in the last few weeks as a result of COVID-19 vaccines when vaccination became available. I understand that many teachers and school staff will have already received their boosters or are in the process of receiving their invitations to book their booster. And the news of vaccinations available for the 5-11 age group has been a very hopeful development and I know continues to be a priority with respect to our vaccination campaign. And I know that we have a lot of people who are eligible and parents to book their appointment to have their young one vaccinated. Finally, I just to say that I, you know, we have really focused on ensuring we can continue to keep kids connected to in-person learning throughout this pandemic. Extraordinary work has happened to achieve that goal and it has been challenging and we are not out of the opportunity to make many challenges in this pandemic and our ongoing work together will help ensure that students have safe spaces and places to learn as we work to manage the disruption of Omicron in our K-12 system. That is our goal and commitment for today and to work to this end until we put this pandemic behind us. Thank you very much. Thank you, Minister Whiteside. Thank you, Dr Henry. Today I will be providing an update on immunization, surgical postponements and our inventory of rapid tests. With respect to the number of people in our hospitals today, we have, as you know, as we discussed before, 9,229 base beds in our healthcare, in our hospital system, and 2,353 surge beds. We have 510 critical care base beds. We have 2,818 surge critical care beds. We have 510 critical care base beds. We have 2,818 surge critical care beds. I just want to take you through where we are as of this morning. 8,778. We have 8,778 patients for a 9,229 base acute care beds. That is 95.1% full. That number in itself is not surprising. It is our expectation to run at that level. In fact, a year ago, prior to the, two years ago, I should say prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, we were running at about 103.5% on these beds. So that is where we are now. With respect to the 2,353 surge beds, 593 of those are full at the moment. For a total of 25.2%. With respect to acute care beds, I mean critical care beds, I should say, of the 510 base beds, 454 are occupied at the moment. Of the 218 surge beds, 223 are occupied. That is 89% and 10.6% respectively. As I have noted and as we have noted, the reason why government has taken the ministry, the provincial health officer and the health authorities have taken action to delay non-urgent scheduled surgeries in these times is in part to ensure that we control or limit hospital capacity so we have space for patients with COVID-19 who may need hospital care. And in addition, and just as importantly, to deal with issues of medical absenteeism. In other words, people who are unable to come to work because they are sick. So it is not just an issue of we have these many beds available. It is also a significant staffing issue which is why we are taking to ensure that we have, that we limit other uses of hospital beds in our province. With respect to immunization, the last two days done more than a minister, more than 100,000 vaccines, overwhelmingly third-dose vaccines in British Columbia. So that is over 100,000 in the last two days, 50,000, more than 50,000 each day. As of now, we have four more million 391,912 first-dose immunizations and 4,132,009 second-dose immunizations. With respect to booster doses, 1,089,410 booster doses have been administered in British Columbia. The priorities have been laid out since we announced our plan on October 26th and by the weekend. It is our expectation that everyone who had their second-dose immunizations will be able to receive an invitation to book. As you will remember, in previous waves, in the third wave, when we had the main part of our immunization program in BC, we gave priority to essential workers in many sectors, including critical food service workers, obviously teachers and others received things from priority, so they were able to receive the first dose. So we have a lot of people who have received the first dose and we have a lot of people who received the first dose. So those groups of people will reach their six months sooner than the average population and we would be expecting everyone to be invited to book and we encourage people when they are invited to book to book. They remain a significant number of unfilled appointments in BC, although we are adding significant number of people to the system and adding appointments every day. So if you say you have an appointment, you can move up their vaccine appointments and I encourage all of you to take advantage of that. With respect to rapid tests, I just want to go through the numbers for you so that we understand it and particularly in light of the federal announcement made yesterday by the federal minister of health, Mr. DeClo, to date, just to go back and all of this was presented in detail on December 21st when we received 3,891,447 rapid tests and deployed 2,752,335 of these tests to key strategic areas. Up until December 15th, BC had distributed 1,266,513 rapid tests across five key areas, long-term care, provincial corrections, rural, remote and indigenous communities, case contact and cluster management and businesses and organizations were able to make sure that all of these tests were in place. We also have a number of health care and healthcare management and businesses and organizations through the point of care screening program. On December 21st, we outlined a plan to continue and expand the use of rapid tests to COVID-19 testing sites, long-term care, healthcare workers, rural, remote indigenous and vulnerable communities, businesses and organizations and medical health officers to support case management and outbreaks. Between December 15th and January 5th, we deployed 22 tests to these areas. Just over the last three weeks, BC has delivered 207,030 tests to long-term care facilities in BC. 20,000 of these tests in fact were delivered yesterday. 87,000 prior to yesterday and 100,000 are in the process of being delivered. That leaves in BC a current inventory of 1,139,112 tests. Approximately half of the current inventory of tests, 561,613 tests were delivered in BC. 561,672 are not suitable for deployment for take-away or personal use. They require special equipment, administration by healthcare professionals and cannot be broken down or repackaged for self-administration. These tests will continue to be used. Those tests, all of them, will continue to be used by medical health officers in appropriate settings to manage clusters and outbreaks. That leaves 577,440 tests that are more suitable for self-administered use. Approximately one for every 10 British Columbians. And then there would be, but of course, there are requirements for healthcare, long-term care, remote communities and First Nations and other high-risk settings and of course, as has been described by Dr. Henry today as we move forward through K-12 and post-secondary in the coming weeks. These 577,000 tests will be used for symptomatic healthcare workers in acute care and for long-term care. These tests will be used by nurses and organisations through point of care screening program. The remainder in the process of being repackaged with nasal swabs to replenish supply at testing sites and acute care, long-term care and rural remote and indigenous communities. As you will note yesterday, Canada signaled its intention to deliver 140 million rapid tests that have been sourced for provinces and territories. The tests will be received through January and February. However, the only tests that have been committed to BC with certainty are approximately 600,000 tests that are expected to arrive in BC over the next week. 90,000 of these tests will arrive in Vancouver today. 310,000 are on their way and expected to arrive early next week. And if further 200,000 are expected to arrive by late next week. 120,000 of these tests will be deployed as they arrive directly to BC. And 20,000 of these tests will be deployed as they arrive and will be rapidly deployed on a daily basis to testing sites across BC. The 200,000 arriving late next week will be used by symptomatic teachers and school staff. Dr. Henry and Minister Whiteside spoke to reinforce safety measures in place for schools. I can add that the ministries of health and education will work with the BC CDC and school districts over the next weeks to review these new tests arriving late next week and to establish clear protocols for self-testing. As our supply increases in mid to late January, we will expand the availability of rapid tests across education systems. We will continue to update the public on the deployment and use of rapid tests as we gain certainty on timing and supply from the federal government. It is important to remember that the announcement by the federal government that tens of millions of rapid tests have been arrived, been delivered or are ready for use in BC. It is important to recognize that we are very obviously pleased that the federal government has made this effort, but they are not here yet. And now here is our weekly surgical renewal update. Health authorities report from December 5th to December 11th. The 7,049 surgeries were completed in BC, which is a remarkable achievement by surgeons, by nurses, by health sciences professionals, by healthcare workers and BC. While urgent and non-urgent scheduled surgeries are continuing around the province over the holiday period, health authorities postponed in that period, December 26th to January 1st, 38 non-urgent scheduled surgeries. That is two in Fraser Health, five in Vancouver Coastal Health, four in Northern Health, 27 in Interior Health. Cumulatively, from September 5th to January 1st, there have been 4,029 surgical postponements due to regional surges of COVID and factors including severe weather patterns. Patients are anticipating their surgery and are anxious about it and are ready to make that next step. Everyone involved in delivering surgeries, and by now, I think all of us really, understands that no patient ever wants to receive a call postponing their surgery. Almost two years ago, when our first postponement started, we made a commitment, right then we said you are not forgotten, right then we will get you your surgery. And that is exactly what we did, and that is exactly what we will continue to do. Several times now, the persistence of a virus that spreads to live has perhaps tempted us to dwell on what we can't do. Yet each time we have responded by focusing on all that we can do together using the power and the ability we have to loosen COVID's hold. I want to express my appreciation to healthcare workers in testing, in vaccination, in acute care, in the community who are doing exceptional work. I want to express my appreciation to everyone in BC who is, I believe, doing their part to help all of us, help each other, help our friends, our neighbors, to care for one another in the COVID-19 pandemic, to use the tools and the power that we have to address a very challenging time in the world. Over the last seven days, test positivity in BC has run about 24% in COVID-19. It's been relatively stable on a day-to-day average, but it's been stable at a very, very high level through more than 100,000 PCR tests. So an exceptional sample of where we are in British Columbia with respect to the pandemic. That is very high test positivity rates. You recall at the beginning of December, those test positivity rates were about 3%. So eight times higher than that. In this period, it's going to require more of us, unfortunately, because I know all of you and all of us are tired, but we can do this together and we must do this together to do all of the things that you need to do to reduce the transmission in COVID-19, because all of the things you can do help our health care workers, our hospitals, our schools, everyone. I want to thank you for all you've done so far and we are happy to take your questions. A reminder to media on the line, please press star 1 to enter the queue. You'll be limited to one question and one follow-up. Our first question today comes from Géorgio Global Mail. Hi, Dr. Harry. Infections disease expert at Stanford and UBC have both told us that your guidance earlier this week that N95 masks offer only incremental protection to people. If that is like stores or schools, it's wrong. They said with on-the-corn respirators are needed in crowded indoor public settings. And a 2010 peer review study showed more than three-quarters of people putting a respirator for the first time did so properly and provided themselves better protection than what surgical masks do you achieve. What do you say to the experts criticizing your stance and are you reconsidering offering students, teachers or health workers free N95s if not why not. And Minister Wyside, the BCTF wants free N95s for anyone who wants them. Why won't your ministry offer this? Thank you. So I think we need to put things into perspective. And look at WHO documents, look at what we know about how things are transmitted in public settings. So outside of healthcare settings and schools are a very good example. We have many, many things in place that make it very unlikely that viruses and other pathogens will be transmitted in schools with the things that we have in place now. One of the most important things, and I would put this back to those experts, is about having layers of protection and a hierarchy of protection which means you have things like reduced numbers of people, you have things like reducing the mixing and mingling of people. You have the same people going back to a class every day. So you're not mixing with numbers of different people at different times. You have other things that are important to try and prevent the entrance of a hazard into that setting, like the daily screenings we do. So you can't become infected if there's nobody with the virus in the setting. So there are many things that we do in these situations, or that you don't have to rely on the moderately increased filtration capacity of a respirator versus a medical mask. And I think we need to be pragmatic and practical as well. We know that we're not seeing explosive outbreaks of this virus in those settings where we have these things in place. That is a fact. And we know that the best mask that you wear is a good quality one that is well fitting to your body. And if you just reiterate that's the important thing. The mask is one piece of many prongs that we have in many different settings that protect people from transmission of viruses. So it's everything that we do that makes a difference so that you don't have to rely on the increased filtration of a respirator versus a surgical mask. And in school settings, in public settings, outside of healthcare settings, it's much more important that you have a good quality, good fitting mask that you wear. And that you wear consistently and that you wear correctly. We'll now go to Vancouver for the rest of the response. Thank you. And really just to add to Dr. Henry's comments to say that in the education sector we work very closely under the advice and direction of our public health advisers at the CDC and the advice that we have to ensure is to ensure that we can provide the three layer disposable masks throughout our system and to importantly ensure that we're reinforcing that message and that working with students to ensure that there's appropriate use of masks and that they're available and we've been working with our suppliers to ensure that there's a good supply of masks available next week when kids come back to school. Thank you. Yes, I do. Thanks. You mentioned you will no longer report school outbreaks and instead will monitor attendance and if it explodes then the school will contact public health. How will parents know if their child has been exposed to a sick child and how will parents know if there has been an outbreak at their school? At what point will a school refer to online learning and how will parents know if there has been an outbreak? I think we may go back to Dr. Henry with respect to the exposures and such. What we understand in the current situation that we're in with Omicron is that having access to information about individual test positive cases is not going to be possible. So we need a proxy to understand what's happening in schools. So schools know very well what their attendance rates fluctuate and what is typical for this time of year. So schools will be monitoring on a daily basis as they always do for attendance as a trigger. And when it reaches a certain point that will be a trigger to say that there's something going on in a classroom or across a grade or in a school and that requires an intervention by public health. When a school notifies public health that there is sort of what we might call a response, a notification will also go out to the school community. The school community will know when a school has notified public health that there's a matter for concern. And with respect to a shift to home-based learning, that is a decision, a call that schools will make based on their assessment of what is happening with their own workforce in terms of are there, do they have enough staff to be able to operate the school, to operate classes safely? And so those again are situations where likely the decision will be made quickly but parents would be notified that that will happen. There will be a short time for transition and then home-based learning will commence and those are the very plans that schools have been developing and are ready to put in place. That's been part of the work of this week. Do you have any further questions or any further exposure notifications? Thank you, I think that summarized it really well. And just to be very clear, we are always going to notify parents of outbreaks. That is not changed. That's what we do for other respiratory infections, measles in classrooms or in school settings, other outbreaks that happen as well. So it is not going to change things like attendance and people, both staff and students who are off ill. So that continues and remains in place. What we are no longer able to do and makes, is not right now, is those individual case exposures that were being notified over the past couple of months and years. So because of the way this is transmitting so rapidly and we are no longer doing individual case and contact tracing in the community, because of the change in the parameters that we are seeing with Omicron, it is not effective to do that because of the short incubation period and the rapid transmission. So we cannot rely on individual case and contact tracing. So that is why we are no longer be able to do individual case exposure notifications in schools. So that will change and it will change to be trying to understand if there is a risk of an outbreak and being able to take action if we see absenteeism increase. So those are the changes that are necessitated by the way that this new strain of the virus is transmitting. Thank you very much. And a reminder to media on the line, please do limit yourselves to one question and one follow-up that will allow us to get to as many people as possible. So thank you so much for listening to our show on TV. Good afternoon everyone. This question is for Dr. Henry and Mr. Dix. I am hoping you can help me understand the definition of outbreak, especially in care homes and acute care. What do you consider an outbreak? We are also hearing that it is really just for an uncontrolled spread. Is that true? We have had an outbreak in long-term care and acute care has been defined for COVID for some time. And it is more than one staff person depending on the situation or single resident or patient who has tested positive for COVID-19. So that is what triggers a single staff person triggers enhanced monitoring and testing. And if more people turn up positive, then that is declared an outbreak. But a single resident case or patient case means that somehow there has been transmission within that setting. So that is where an outbreak is declared. Do you have a follow-up, Sinjin? I do. Thank you. I am also looking at, I know you were talking a lot about the hospitals and the shortage of staff there. And I know there are doctors and nurses who are COVID positive and there is a lot of people in the hospital to help treat patients and do their work. Where are you in that? Will you allow doctors and nurses who are COVID positive to work again? So I have said this quite a few times, but I will say it again. We have a health human resource planning in place right now that has been since the very beginning. We have principles that we use, things like calling people back from vacation and people work in different areas. So there is a whole series of things that we do to try and manage when people are off ill as COVID is spreading through the community. So these things have been in play and are continuing to be put in place. One of the last resort, if we get to that point, where we are, it will compromise care for people, then we might be, find, we have a fitness for work protocol, if we are going to get to that point. So we have a protocol it's called for healthcare workers who are infected with Omicron, who are very mild symptoms or asymptomatic, and they can come back under certain conditions if needed. So as I have said a number of times, this is a last resort. We of course do not want to have people who are ill working for a whole variety of reasons, for their own health and as well the risk that it is going to be needed and where people would work. For example, we would not have somebody who has had mild case of COVID working on a cancer ward. They would work probably with COVID patients, for example. So those are things that we have protocols in place that have been dusted off again to make sure that if we get to that point, we have a process that allows, if necessary, people to work if they want to. Now over to Minister Dix in Vancouver. Just to say that this is why we made the decision weeks ago now that as of January 4th, we were going to delay non-urgent scheduled surgeries in our province. We are obviously assessing that on a week-to-week basis, but that is one of the ways we have, and it comes at a price, but it is one of the ways that we have to reduce the number of people in the hospital and more effectively to deal with the circumstance of the Omicron variant of concern in long-term care and in acute care. There is significant planning that has taken place at every stage of the pandemic. You will note in August of 2020, we announced a plan and a detailed plan of our health human resources strategies for that fall and winter. And fortunately in that fall and winter, we saw fewer, for example, influenza cases than we typically see. The challenge in January is that there is typically more people in our hospitals in January, such that in this date before the COVID pandemic in 2019, there were well over 100% of base beds full at that time. There are more other kinds of illness, more people dealing with things such as influenza, but other respiratory illness, particularly vulnerable people, and other conditions that people are facing. So that is why we are taking action in the areas that we have control to give ourselves the best chance to deal with this. So what you are talking about is something that might be envisioned at some point in the future in order to address something. But right now, the current rules and the continuing rules apply, we want people who are sick to stay home. We go to Richard Desmond, Global News. I think a big part of the anxiousness people are feeling is what you mentioned in terms of dropping below attendance. What creates the trigger? And the other thing I have heard from a lot of people in the system is at what point does the school close for functional reasons? Is it 20% of staff not available? 30% of staff not available? At what point does a functional closure get triggered? And for families, they are concerned about when they even send their kid back. So when is it safe if you have COVID symptoms but can't access a test? When can you send your child back to school? If you are 5 to 11, does it even matter if they have received a vaccine or not? So perhaps I will start. And then Minister White's hike can respond as well. You know, this has been a really challenging thing for parents all along. Is it COVID should I keep them home? Is it that runny nose that's been going on for a long time? So those decisions right now will continue to be those challenging ones. I would say if in doubt, keep your child home right now. And yes, it does make a huge difference if they are vaccinated, especially the 5 to 11. And I encourage all young people to get vaccinated. We know and we are seeing some concern that it can exacerbate asthma more likely than some of the other variants that we have seen so far. So there is good protection even after dose 1, it helps. So that is important to get children protected from getting sick from this. And yes, it's going to be a challenging thing as we get more and more hopefully of the at-home tests available, we will be able to support families in being able to do that. And we have not yet had those types of tests available in Canada or in BC. So that is coming, but it's not going to get us through this next few weeks. We need to continue to use your good judgment and parents know kids and if in doubt, keep them home for a day. If it's getting better and resolving, then you can go back into school. So that's how we are going to have to manage this and we are going to have to have to be at 10% above normal. And these are things that will vary a little bit depending on the school and the district and how they are able to bring other people in to support. So there is no one cut off in terms of what would lead to a functional closure. And I think Minister Whites can address that in more detail. But each principal, each school, each school staff, they understand the regular pattern that they see. So we have been working, we in public health have been working with them to have the protocols that are in place to support administrators and to connect when they have a concern so that we can help in the investigation of determining exactly what is happening in that school. And Minister, did you want to add to that? Yes, thank you, Dr. Henry and thank you, Richard, for the question. I think it is important to address that. Educators know their classrooms, principals and vice principals know their schools and superintendents know their districts. So they know what is a general level of absence on any day in the system where a number of students and staff would not be at school for a number of different kinds of reasons. So they know what that level is and if it is 90%, and if it is 80%, then that will be a trigger. But they will also be monitoring on a daily basis to understand and to see what is happening in their school. And if that trigger is, you know, if absenteeism is, if attendance is higher or slightly lower, that is what a school will use to assess, to help assess what whether there is a, what we are calling a signal of concern that needs attention from public health. With respect to functional closures, you know, it will look different from district to district. We have, you know, almost 1600 public schools in the system, over 300 independent schools. We have a lot of different sizes and varieties and shapes of schools. And so it is different in a school of 300 students versus a school of 18 or 1900 students. The superintendent has said that generally when they are looking at a staff absentee rate of around 25%, if they have 25% or so of their staff out with illness, then that is going to be a challenge for them to operate some of their schools. So districts are superintendents, they are looking at that question, but it will be a bit different from district to district. And schools are going to be working very hard to communicate with parents in the coming weeks. Do you have a follow-up? DR. HENRY, with the announcement today around the COVID safety plans, how quickly do they come into place? Did this have anything to do with the announcement we found out today that the Canucks would be postponing their game tomorrow? Was there any conversation with the team that there was going to be a reduction in capacity or change in rules that made it impossible for the team to operate? And for Minister Dix, with the concerns yesterday at the convention center, people waiting more than two hours to get their vaccine, have changes been made there? And are you worried about the fact that hundreds of thousands of people will be hitting six months of the next few weeks? And we just don't have the capacity there yet to manage this influx that's coming? DR. HENRY, with the announcement today around the COVID safety plans, I've been engaged with many different sectors and industry sectors as have some of our team over the last few weeks. And many of the sectors, I think of the food processing plants, for example, they really embraced the measures that were put in place and continue to have them in place. I know in some places and some retail places, they've taken away some of the barriers and some of the things that have been in order, as I've said, and we'll be transitioning to getting those back. It's a consultative process as well. And that's part of how they have worked so well. It's between the employer and the employees and it will be publicly posted. And so I will say to people who are used to not having to do things in the last little while, I think it's important to make sure that we are wearing masks, making sure that we are wearing our masks and if we can't, finding alternate ways to get the things that we need, whether that's curbside or ordering online, because this is an important time to protect workers in those settings and to make sure that we have those things in place that help preserve the healthcare work or that they will come into place in the next, I expect there will be a bit of a transition for some businesses and some of them will already have things in place already. We are working with WorkSafe BC and the information is out there so over the coming week, I expect these to be up and in place across industries across the province. In terms of the Canucks, we have had ongoing discussions, I think we have had a lot of discussions about operations and it was a decision, I provided advice, but it was a decision that they made to postpone both the last game and this game, given the situation that we are faced with here and the situation they are faced with in the NHL as well. Now over to Vancouver. Thank you, Richard. I would say that we have seen a significant increase in capacity in the number of people who are at the six-month point or longer in the last couple of three days, 142,000 vaccines administered in three days, 101,000 over the last two days, including yesterday at the convention centre, 5,000. At the convention centre, there are two sets of things to remember. We ramped that up from 0 to 5,000 very quickly and that was, I think, reflects the extraordinary work that we have done to help people at the convention centre yesterday and it caused a bit of a challenge for us and for people, but one in four of the people that we surveyed did not have an appointment. You can only get a third dose vaccination if you have an appointment and that makes the system work better for everybody and we have to communicate that and that is what I am doing today. There are some places where you can get a third dose of vaccination and there are hundreds of thousands of open appointments such that yesterday, a constituent of mine, got an appointment for Saturday on Tuesday, or I guess yesterday was Wednesday, I think, I forget what day of the week we are now. But yesterday in any event got one for Saturday. So we have lots of appointments that are coming available and going to be coming available. So we are raising the capacity of the system to meet this requirement. We are going to be able to do it. Our teams have done an exceptional job over the last couple of days. I apologize to people who waited in line for a couple of hours at the convention centre but also thank them for their perseverance, for getting through and getting their booster dose. It is important when you are invited to get your booster dose to get it. And finally I just want to say in addition to all of that, we are also going to have a pediatric vaccine against COVID-19. And to date, 140,711 children 5-11 have received their vaccination. 166,000 have received and have booked an appointment. And a total of 182,000 have registered. Now that leaves approximately 167,000 children who have not yet been registered in the system. I encourage them to do so. We have about 90 centres around the country that have the pediatric vaccine, the Pfizer pediatric vaccine for children 5-11 designed for them. And I encourage every single one of those parents to register their children today. Thank you very much. Dr. Henry, I would like to know what changed from last week when you didn't want to start or begin any orders on businesses. And without an accurate data count, case count numbers, how will you be able to tell if your orders are working? Yes, a couple of things. I think there was some, when I said I wanted to get out of the order business, that was about getting through this pandemic. That we don't want to have orders that require us to do certain things. And they are a function of how we have had to manage to get through this pandemic. And I stand by that. We want to do this few orders as possible. And yes, we, you know, orders closing businesses down are things that I don't want to do and I absolutely don't want to do. But we do take them very seriously. And they are orders, what I talked about last week or earlier this week was the least restrictive means, the things we can do that will, the minimum amount of disruption to protect our health care system and to minimize the disruption that we are causing on society, especially the negative disruption. So this is one of the things that has worked for us in the past and consultation with industry. It makes it much cleaner if we have an order and it lays out all of the requirements under the order. So that's why we are doing it. I didn't mean to imply in any way that we are doing it. We are doing it in a way that we are necessary. It's mostly, we want to get through this part so that we can come back to learning how to live with this as another respiratory virus in our lives. And we are not there yet. But I do think we will get there. And we will get there as we get through this wave and hopefully into the spring, I think it's going to be a very different situation. I'm sorry, I lost the second piece of what you said, Lisa. How difficult is it to judge whether the orders are working if you know the data you are able to collect on case counts? Yes, so case counts have only been one thing that we have. And to be honest, we have been trying to move away from the daily case counts as an indicator of what is happening. Because they only reflect case counts in different areas. So it's one of the surveillance markers that we use. And it's very consistent. So we have been using the PCR daily case counts. But really, as we introduced over a year ago, the seven-day rolling average gives us a better sense because that takes into account daily variations that we see in different testing centres and testing sites. So it is one indicator, but it's not the only one by any point. It is also quite a bit, the percent positivity. So that is a marker that tells us over time. In a number of our modelling sessions, I present a number of other things that we look at, whether it's hospitalizations, ICU, the percent of testing, the rate of testing, sorry, and different age groups and different communities, that helps us put the testing and the daily counts in perspective. We are also, we have an online test that shows the positive positivity and that's expanding. It's going to be available by early next week for everybody in the province. And we are getting some information from that. It is limited because we don't have a denominator. We don't know how many people actually are using it, but it does give us a sense of what proportion of tests that are reported, are positive, out of the ones that are doing that. There is a lot of information about the waste water surveillance that we are doing in a number of different areas. So there is many different streams of surveillance that help us get an understanding of what actually is happening with the pandemic and the trajectory of the pandemic in BC. Now over to Minister Dixon Vancouver. I just want to note on this point that Dr Henry, our teams have been working with him since he was born in September 31. So there is no reluctance to use orders where they are designed to help people and to reduce the transmission of COVID-19. And Dr Henry has demonstrated that. What I know from my observations and our engagement with public health is that every time that step is taken, every time, Dr Henry considers the consequences of that, the consequences of the order, mental health and business orders before taking the order, every one of those orders is taken with reluctance. It is taken with reluctance, the limitation of visitation, to long-term care. Because we understand, I understand, Dr Henry understands the consequences of that. But the action was taken because it was necessary to take that action. And I think the process and the work of Dr Henry and our team in this area is just exemplary. And I think it is important that we take that approach, which is to use all of the layers of protection, to use orders when necessary, and understand that all of those orders have consequences other than on COVID-19. Yes, Dr Henry, we refer to rapid tests and wastewater monitoring in your response. Will you share publicly the data that you are collecting on rapid tests where people register through the website? And can you explain why the data is updated on the website since December 20th? I think it is the 24th that it was updated. Yes, absolutely. We are collating that and trying to understand what it means. And I fully intend to make it public once we have an understanding of how to best present that and how to interpret it. These are not easy things to interpret. As I mentioned, I am talking about the online reporting of COVID-19. There are complications when you don't have a denominator. If we look at the UK, for example, this is a model for how they have been using at home tests for a long time and they have a QR code and you can download, but they don't have a sense of how many people are actually using the tests and how many people are actually reporting online. It is tricky to know what it actually tells you. It is difficult to understand what it means and yes, I will be absolutely presenting that. And the reason that there was a pause in some of the reporting of the wastewater surveillance is because particularly at the wastewater sites, it takes time and people to do the type of testing and those people needed a break over the holidays. So they spent time with their families and we suspended some of the data collection for a long time and that has been, now that they have been able to have a little bit of time, as we know a lot of people have been working very long hours, including our laboratory staff. So that surveillance will be continuing. Next question, Christopher Folds, Camloops, this week. Hi, thanks for this opportunity. I just spoke with an employee of the long-term care home here in Camloops and they said, I don't want to clarify this is the right policy. They give rapid tests to essential visitors but the visitor then just goes in and visits while the employee waits for the results of the test that takes about 15 minutes. They said there was three today in which the essential visitor does the rapid test and goes into visit and I said that doesn't make any sense and the employee says even if it's positive, they're allowed to go in and visit. Is this the policy or is she wrong? That's not the policy that we would have in place. No, I think that's a loose interpretation of the policy and so I would encourage them to review their protocols that they have in place and I know that we've been working with the care homes and how to put those protocols in place across the province in the last little while. Chris, do you have a follow-up? Yes, I have a follow-up. I have a follow-up. The rapid tests are as good for Omicron and there's limitations to the rapid tests and heaven knows I've said that a few times before but if they are positive, it is a good indication that you should not be visiting that day and depending on the person, they may need to have another test. But there is some concerns out there that Delta is better than the nasal swab and Omicron might be better detected by a throat swab. It's mostly theoretical right now and the nasal swabs that we have and the rapid tests that we have seem to be working just as well from what we can tell for Omicron as for Delta and the other strains that we're seeing. So not perfect by any means but still the nasal swab is the way we would recommend doing it right now. I'm not going to throw a throat and a nasal with the same swab but for now, the data that we have supports that using them with the nasal swab right now is as good as we can do right now. Chris, do you have a follow-up? Unrelated follow-up, that's to with hospitalizations of COVID patients, can you clarify how they are counted as COVID patients? If a person goes to the hospital for non-COVID related matter, they have broken bones but in the course of being admitted, they test positive for COVID even though they're asymptomatic, are they then counted as a COVID patient or are COVID patients only counted when they go there and they're really sick and they have to go in the hospital? This is something that I've talked about a few times before as well. There are several different ways that we look at hospitalization with COVID and we are working with COVID in the country and we had a discussion on our chief medical officer of health call about this very thing, especially now where we're trying to understand the severity of illness with Omicron. So we're trying to tease apart people who are in hospital from COVID, people who are in hospital with COVID and people who are in hospital because COVID exacerbated one of their underlying conditions. And it's not easy to do that every individual chart. So we have several ways that we are measuring right now hospitalization and we're in the process of looking at how we can make this more automated, more streamlined, less people intensive and give us a sense of what we need to know. So we are right now measuring two different things. One of them is everybody in a hospital, in a facility with a COVID positive test. So that will be a mixture of people who came in for something else and were screened for surgery, for example, for somebody who had trauma, who was going for surgery, might have had a COVID screen and had a positive test. People who we have a couple of outbreaks right now in acute care and people who were involved in the outbreak, so they were in hospital for something else. And they tested positive as part of the outbreak. So it is an overestimation of the burden that Omicron is causing. But it is a number that we get. It's not 100% accurate every single day because it relies on people counting who is in every single hospital and then collating that information. So that's one of the measures that we get. Another one that takes even more information is looking at everybody who has tested positive for COVID-19 and that's based on our laboratory PCR testing and epidemiologic link testing and then looking at how many of them in the course of their illness require hospitalization. So that is a measure of how severe is the illness on average. And that's an important measure we want to know for Omicron compared to Delta, for example. But that requires linkage of information from the laboratory, from the individual with hospitalization lists. And so it takes more time to do that and it takes a little bit of a delay. So what we're working on and what we've been presenting is a bit of a composite of both of those pieces of information which are collected for two different reasons and we're in the process right now of trying to tease through what's the best measure for us to understand the impact of this on severity of illness and on hospitalizations. So we'll have more to say about that in the coming week. And I know I've been sharing these discussions with my colleagues in Ontario and Alberta because we're all trying to struggle with some of those measures. We have time for one more question. We'll go to Bellpuree, CBC. Thank you. And in English and French please. Dr Henry, you and Richard are getting sick. I want to ask you, it's probably safe to say that right now many students have family members who have COVID at home. But the students don't have any symptoms, the children don't have any symptoms. Can those children, students go to school, what's your guidance for families dealing with COVID in their households right now? So I think the short answer is yes. We are particularly children with mild illness and less likely to have symptoms. Yes, we are still allowing children to go to school in those settings and to monitor very carefully. If there's a really sick people in the house, it may be up to families to make those decisions about whether they want to keep children home in those scenarios. Now we'll go to Vancouver for Minister Dix. You should pass the question to the speaker. I think what Dr Henry just said is that people who have symptoms, who don't have symptoms, but who have cases in their families, it is possible for them to go to school. Or if the symptoms are serious in the house, or if the child has symptoms, it is obvious that the child doesn't have to go to school, or if the symptoms are serious in the house, the child doesn't have to go to school. So there is a certain flexibility, choice for families, but it is important for children to go to school. But you have to take seriously what is going on with COVID-19 and make the right decision. So the advice that Dr Henry just said, just offered, are important. But everyone has to be confident at this moment because it is important for everyone to be confident at this moment because we have a transmission in the province of about 24% of our testing system in the province and it is important to be careful in all circumstances. Sorry, we should have the part. Of course the important things are making sure that they are wearing a mask when they are in school, that they are doing all of the other things that help prevent transmission of infections. Yes, please, and again in English and French. Dr Henry, the BCCDC has new testing advice on its website and it suggests that people with a couple of symptoms for more than 24 hours should get tested. Now that seems to contradict what you just said about not needing a test if you only have mild symptoms. So the guidance on the BCCDC website talks about the types of symptoms, but we also put that in the context of whether you are vaccinated or not vaccinated and you are at risk. So we are in the process of updating that, but I thought it had been changed. But really, right now, with the type of illness we are seeing and with the rapid transmission and the finite capacity that we have to do particularly PCR testing, that if you don't have severe illness, you are not immunocompromised and if you have mild illness, you don't need a test right now. And over to Vancouver, Minister Dix. In fact, what Dr Henry just said is that we will have the advice on the BCCDC website and we will make sure that these advice are up to date. But what is important is that it really depends on the vaccine status. And that is what we are going to do. We are going to have a vaccine of people. So if we are vaccinated and if we have symptoms that are not very serious, we have to assume in some way that we have COVID-19 and stay at home. And that is important. We will have to limit in some way the categories of people who will receive a PCR test because of the limitation of the number of tests. That being said, we have done 100,000 tests last week, in the last seven days. And these tests give us and give individuals 100,000 anyway, a lot of certain assurances on this question. So we have decided to limit it to make sure that people who need a test can receive their test and we will continue to continue to follow this path. So we will continue to follow this path. So I will personally see the advice on the website to make sure that they are the same people who have just said Dr Henry, but I think that is the situation currently. Thank you very much. And Dr Henry and I will see you next Tuesday.