 Good morning, this is our COVID-19 briefing for Friday, December the 31st, 2021, the last such briefing in 2021. I am honored to be here on the territory of the Lekwungen speaking people of the Songi, no, I'm sorry, I'm here in Vancouver on the territories of the Musqueam of the Squamish and the Slewa-tooth First Nations. We're honored to be here on their lands, honored to be here today to speak to you. The next person to speak to me today to my right is Dr. Bonnie Henry, BC's provincial health officer and head of our immunization BC campaign, Dr. Penny Ballum also to my right. So Dr. Henry and then Dr. Ballum will speak, be speaking today and giving updates on both the COVID-19 response and the immunization campaign and I'll have a few words to say at the end and then we'll be happy to take your questions and with that it's my honor to introduce Dr. Bonnie Henry. Dr. Henry Henry, BC's provincial health officer and head of our immunization BC campaign and I'll have a few words to say at the end and to provide our update as we go into the new year's weekend and conclude yet another year of this pandemic. I know that many of us are fatigued. It has been a long road for us and another year of challenge and COVID-19 has proven to be a difficult burden and an ever-changing burden for us. We have lost parents, friends, grandparents. But through all of that, we have found ways to connect and support each other even though we've had disruption of things we enjoy in life from arts to sports to music. Despite these hardships, through what are highly effective and safe vaccines, combined with the efforts of everyone, we have without exaggeration, saved many, many lives. This time last year, very few people had access to vaccines and now we've delivered over 9.5 million doses in our province alone. And that continues and we're going to talk more about our booster program and the program to protect those younger children 5 to 11 in our community. But what we are seeing right now is once again this virus has changed. And as we've talked about in the last two weeks, it has changed to become more infectious. It is spreading rapidly in our communities and we see that reflected just in the numbers of people who are tested and the numbers who are positive. But we see it reflected in all of our surveillance streams, whether that's wastewater surveillance, whether it's our hospitalization numbers we're seeing across the province that this is spreading rapidly. For those people who are vaccinated, it is mostly causing mild illness. And that is a good thing. But with rapid increasing in numbers, we're facing challenges. We're facing challenges in people being off work because of illness. And that is stretching some systems. It's stretching some of our health care systems. And we know now that we can spread this very rapidly even with very mild symptoms. The illness that we're seeing, particularly in health care workers, is starting to have impacts on our health care system. And in our long-term care system. And yesterday we've had a number of outbreaks again in long-term care. So starting tomorrow, recognizing what we are seeing with transmission across the province and in our communities, we will be restricting visitors to long-term care to essential visitors only. I know this has been the place that we have been before. And we have many measures in place. But with the increase in, we need to decrease in numbers of people coming into long-term care homes so that we can best protect the seniors and elders in our care homes and ensure that health care workers in those settings are able to manage and cope. So protecting residents because this virus is spreading so quickly. This will be a measure that we'll have in place for as short a period of time as possible. And I will be reevaluating this on January 18th, along with a number of COVID-19 cases. As we know, booster doses are amplifying our protection that we get from the first two doses of vaccination. And what we are seeing across all the vaccines that are available is over time we have a gradual slow decline in that protection from antibodies, the protection from infection. It isn't a sudden drop-off. And I think that's one of the things that's important for us to know. It's not one day we're protected and the protection is over time. And we know that as we started our booster dose program, we knew that around six to eight months was a good time to boost that antibody response for most people. Especially for people who immune systems didn't develop as strong support from the beginning. And while the protection from serious illness, and we're seeing that the protection from serious illness like COVID-19, and we're seeing that the isolationization remains strong, does weaken in some people more than others. And people who are older or have immune-compromising conditions. And that's where our booster dose program was focusing, making sure that we could get to those people first. At highest risk of severe illness. And now we're working through everyone else, and I know Dr. Balam is going to talk about this with the rise of Omicron and the coming to six months for most people. I also want to say that people who are pregnant, we know are at higher risk of severe illness from Omicron that can affect both, or from COVID that can affect both them and their baby. Which means we are now prioritizing your access as well to booster doses. If you are pregnant and have six months after your second dose, you are eligible now for your booster dose and we don't know who you are, so you will need to contact the call centre at 1-833-838-2323 and self-identify that you are pregnant and you will be able to book your booster dose in the coming days. Earlier this week I was asked about changes to the requirements for self-isolation. And as you know here in BC, we had been people who were vaccinated were only required to self-isolate for seven months. And we have seen a number of discussions across this country looking at data, both from here in BC and from other provinces and from other countries. And we have come to a consensus that with the milder illness that we are seeing in most people right now, that we can make a change to reduce the period of time that people need to be isolated if they are sick. If you are unvaccinated, we continue to look at the requirements for self- isolation for 10 days from your symptoms began or when your test was positive. There is no change to this. But if you are fully vaccinated and either have no symptoms or your symptoms are resolving, you no longer have a fever. We are reducing the requirement for self-isolation to five days. After five days, if your symptoms have resolved or are mostly improved, you can continue to look at the requirements for self-isolation for 10 to 15 days. It is important that we also take precautions. This is a risk mitigation strategy. It doesn't mean that every single person will be through their infectious period where they are infectious to others within five days. But the vast majority of people are. What we are seeing with Omicron is that shorter incubation period means that people are infectious earlier and that the illness tends to resolve more quickly as well. That is the reason why we are now reducing it to five days. But it doesn't mean that you can go visits on long-term care. You need to be very careful about not going to gatherings for that additional five days, wearing a mask when you are around other people to make sure that you are taking all the additional precautions to reduce that risk too. If you continue to feel unwell after five days or you still have a fever, then you must continue to self isolate until your symptoms resolve. So the bottom line is you must stay home for five days, isolation. If you have no symptoms or you are simply going to find others for an additional five days. There is no need for people to be tested either after an exposure or before the end of five days before they can go back into work, etc. Right now, for people who have been exposed, even a high-risk exposure, if you are fully vaccinated, you can continue to carry on your activities that you must not go to group gatherings and social gatherings, for example, where you can may be able to spread it to others. You must wear a mask and self monitor for seven days. On Wednesday, I also spoke about the COVID-19 response system has experienced a higher number of employees who are needing to stay home because they are ill with COVID-19 or other illnesses. We are also seeing that in other sectors across the province. I encourage all employers, whether you are frontline emergency response, operating a restaurant or if your employees work in an office, to prepare for the need for employees to stay home if they are sick. It will mean that some businesses may need to close temporarily because of the lack of staff. I know we have seen that already in some situations, I know some restaurants, for example, where we have had staff illness and some other situations as well. It is important now, at this phase, with this virus that we are seeing spreading now, that we start thinking about how do we prepare for supporting our employees to stay home and to have business continuity planning in place. Workplaces that have had employees working from home should continue to minimize the potential for workplace transmission by continuing this work from home approach. Others where the need to be in-person remains, ensure you go back to thinking through what we had in place that got us through other phases of this pandemic. Those are our COVID safety plans that we have been working on. Things like the need for all of the layers of safety, reducing the numbers of people in the space, making sure ventilation is appropriate, staying home if you are ill, and including barriers to prevent transmission. All of these things will help us get through this next few weeks as this wave passes through our communities. On this last day of 2021, I want to thank everybody in British Columbia for your continued efforts, your kindness and resilience in the face of this ongoing adversity. We have learned through this last two years more than ever as we pull together in the storm, we weather it better collectively. Sometimes I know it's hard to know how our individual actions make a difference. But every time we wear a mask, every time we get our vaccination or support somebody else to get vaccinated, give someone space in a door, thank our neighbor or healthcare workers, or we get vaccinated, we make a difference. We make a difference for us, for our family, and for our community. And that is what people in BC have done every day. We have persevered and we are better for it collectively. It has been another tough year. And yet through fires, floods, the continuing toxic drug crises and COVID-19, we have persevered. And I want to wish everybody a safe and happy new year in 2022, the year ahead I hope will be brighter for us all. In the face of this unrelenting uncertainty, let us all continue to be relentlessly kind. Thank you. Thank you so much, Dr. Henry and Minister. Very happy to be here today to just talk about the health and well-being of our vaccine program. I think it is a remarkable feat that we continue to increase the numbers of fully vaccinated British Columbians. We are now up to 92% of our province has been vaccinated with dose one. Of those who are eligible and 89% dose two. This is a remarkable achievement and to Dr. Henry's points is actually providing us with the very significant protection against this new phase of the pandemic. Since we started our booster program on October 27, we have set out 1.146 million booster invitations. We have actually provided 905,784 boosters to date. That is up to the end of yesterday. And as Dr. Henry closed with that, that is in spite of floods, fires, snow, snow, snow, storms, very cold weather, transportation issues. And I think it is really important to recognize the commitment of our public to persevere and like the male, get to their vaccination clinic to get their vaccine and also to the incredible effort of our health authorities, our pharmacies and our suppliers and all the very many people that have been behind this campaign to get Columbia boosted. One of the things if you look at access to appointments for vaccine, there are 720 locations as of today in British Columbia that are providing vaccinations and that will continue to increase over the coming weeks. And there are accessible appointments even this week. As of yesterday, we had another 8,400 slots available for you to get your vaccination before the New Year rings in on Saturday. But now as we turn to the next phase of our campaign, we have been working hard over the last two weeks to plan increased capacity into January through February and hopefully to bring our booster campaign to an even sooner conclusion. So one of the things I just want to highlight and I will come back to this a couple of times is in spite of our invitations we have about 240,000 people who have received an invite over the course of the last few weeks since October 27th and have still not booked an appointment. And to them, I just really want to encourage you. We have had an invite, we have continued to send you reminders, please book your vaccination. As Dr. Henry has said, it will protect you against severe illness related to Omicron and we really want to get everybody vaccinated. We have two main options, health authority clinics which are spread around the province, some communities will be vaccinated as a whole community over the coming weeks. And as well, our pharmacies and I just want to speak a little bit about our pharmacy partners, they are very important, we have 514 pharmacies currently providing vaccinations and that is increasing all the time. We will go up another level, we will bring the total number of pharmacies up to 1100. Those are spread around our province, they are very local. And compared to our dose 1 and dose 2 campaign where the health authorities had multiple clinics all and about different areas of their communities, it is the pharmacies that will work with the health authorities to provide that local access to vaccination. And the good thing that we have been able to do, in the pharmacy sector, is they have worked with us to get themselves onto the get vaccinated system. So every vaccination location in British Columbia is using get vaccinated British Columbia. So Dr. Henry has a record every day of who is vaccinated, what they got, where they got it, what health authority they live in, how old they are, that that information is readily available and our public have one place to book an appointment and as they go through the process, they will be able to get to the clinics, clinics specific for children, whatever it is the need they are looking for. As Dr. Henry has outlined, the first phase of our program really related to people more at risk just as we have run the whole vaccination program. So the boosters were no different and to date we focused on protecting those at more risk who are vulnerable because of immunosuppression, because they are vulnerable for the booster campaign. And I think you know that people that fall into those vulnerable groups are residents of long-term care and assisted living, are home-bound seniors, are home-bound frail people who aren't necessarily seniors but who need ongoing support as they live in their own home environment. Our indigenous peoples and those 18 and over have been invited at five months as have been invited to the booster campaign. We have been vaccinating our healthcare workers across all sectors now, the community, long-term care, hospitals, et cetera, all on a six-month interval. People who received AstraZeneca or CovaShield for both their first and second doses, we know they break through and are a bit more vulnerable to infection so we have invited them to come in and get vaccinated on a shorter as a long-term basis. And the clinically extremely vulnerable groups, you may remember we had three of those groups, very immunosuppressed, those were moderately immunosuppressed and now the broader group with complex chronic medical conditions that were established last year. So they have become, they have been a priority for the booster campaign. And finally, we have now invited all those who are at six months who are 60 and over and are eligible will be out by the end of this week. So our seniors, 60 and over, are vulnerable, those at risk, are very frail people in our facilities. This is what we have focused on over the last weeks. The trigger for those invites has been five to six months and for the rest of the population, our original plan was to go to have people boosted between six and eight months. Very reasonable time frame, as I said, but I think at the end of the day, the onset of Omicron, with our first case was December 1st, you remember, has really changed the needs and as Dr Henry has said, this pandemic continues to make us force us to move and change and re-adapt to its changing nature and the kinds of risks it is presenting for us. And we know that vaccination, having a full series of dose one and dose two provides very significant risk to those who have been vaccinated. We have had a significant protection against severe illness with Omicron. Many people who have been vaccinated have been infected with Omicron already, but they have had a brief illness. It is quite mild. And to date, across our fingers, we are very lucky that our hospitalizations for anybody with Omicron have been very, very few. The booster campaign, the booster will provide enhanced immunity and we know that it will be very, very effective. And so, really, the next phase of our campaign is going to adjust a bit and be focused on trying to get the rest of our population vaccinated as close as possible to a six month interval. So now that our vulnerable and seniors are protected, we are moving to an interval-based invitation process. So people getting to six months, regardless of their age, they will be able to get the rest of the vaccine to that date. And that, really, the closeness depends on, you know, the capacity that we have been able to build up. Over the last few weeks, we have been working with the health authorities to continue to build and they will be building capacity across their clinics and we will be bringing on more pharmacies as we have discussed to actually allow as many people under the age of 60 who actually are over six months. And it's quite a large backlog, it's about 800,000 people who may be a few days to a couple of weeks beyond their six month interval. So our first priority in the next few days is to address that group and to send out invites to people who are beyond six months. And we have been, we have had what we have called our broom. We have been brooming up people over the last few weeks of this week and a half months. But now we want to capture the ones who are over six months and under seven and a half months. So that everybody will now be in a couple of weeks on a plane where their invites are coming out when they reach six months. Now, some people have asked us, well, why would you go to a broad range of ages and why aren't we working down through the ages? At the end of the day, you'll know that during that time, we prioritized a very large number of frontline workers. Well over 300,000 of those. And they were across many, many different groups, first responders, emergency workers, Coast Guard, K-12 educational staff, postal workers, warehouse workers where we had been having significant outbreaks. Correction facilities staff, transportation staff, truckers. People are running, working in transit, food service workers. Where we were getting clusters of infections. Those groups were prioritized by public health and we proceeded to vaccinate them. And now they constitute a large part of the group that are now overdue for their six-month booster. So how are we going to increase capacity? Well, we've been working on planning. I think Minister Dix before Christmas talked about the planning that was underway to increase capacity, our health and safety. And we need to get our government's and ask them we need your space. We know you have plans for those. But in the face of this changing in our pandemic, we need your space. So convention centers, sports arenas are being brought back into play for our vaccination campaign. Places that were already starting to go back to business as usual. And we are very, very appreciative to all of those owners of those immunizations. And then the issue is, do we have enough people to immunize? And in the last couple of days we've reached out through the College of Nursing and the College of Physicians to immunizers, both retired immunizers, people who are not actively practicing but have experience and to all our active registrants. And I have to say we're really in awe that within 24 hours of sending those letters out, we have 1100 people that have taken the time to immunize. And we have a lot of folks that we created for this to volunteer their willingness to actually contribute to the booster campaign. So these things that the bringing online of physical capacity and non-clinical staff, we have community partners that are coming back and trying to help us out as best they can. And the immunizers will, you know, our way of basically expanding our capacity to swallow the elephant that we have in our community. And we have a lot of people reaching their six months. So our plan is that eligible people between 59 and 18 who are invited to book a booster vaccination, we'd like them to be able to find a booking when they get their invite within one to five weeks depending on where they live. Some places will be waiting for a whole of community clinic to come and they may have to wait a little bit longer than a week by week. And one of the things that I want to say to our public is that as we bring on capacity, if you've made an appointment and there's more capacity coming on, you can go back online, you can change your appointment and bring it up. And we've had people do that much more, it's a much easier process than it was for dose one and dose two. You go on to get vaccinated link and it will allow you to find a new way to bring on more and more capacity over the weeks of January. We have, I just want to signal a few things that we've heard from our public, Dr. Henry's office and our team, receive communications from our public and basically along with saying that they can't find an appointment, one of the things that's important as you go on to book your appointment, you have some choices about whether you want to search in your appointment, whether it's within a 10 kilometer radius, 20 kilometer radius, we urge you to go in, if you can't find one in the area you pick, go back and pick another broader geographic area that will find you. Because often, if it's not within 10 kilometers, it may be within 11 kilometers and often you'll click on another button and find there are many, many options for you. That's an issue that I want to make clear. Lots of people who may live a little bit outside of their community, they click on 20 kilometer radius and the next thing they know, they have many, many options available to them. We encourage that. We have emails from people who are worried that they're left out, that we have forgotten, we've lost them in our system. The vast majority of those when we go back and calculate their interval, they will find out that it is going to come. We have tidied up a number of people that did get dropped out of the system, but at this point in time, the vast majority of people who feel they might have been left out are not quite at their interval. It will arrive pretty much exactly on the day that you reach six months and we will continue to try and achieve that over the coming weeks. Just to remind you, if you change, you will have opportunities, if you've booked, when you got your invite and you're four weeks out, there may well be opportunities coming on in the days between that for you to actually move your appointment up. I think just a note on our call center, our call center will be closed on New Year's Day. We will be starting to send out our new appointments starting New Year's afternoon on New Year's Day, but the new call center will be closed on the statutory holiday on Monday. There may be some, you know, as we try and scale up our call center to meet our capacity, you may have to wait a little bit longer than you've been used to and we just ask for your patience around that. We have an incredible call center who answers many, many difficult questions and they're there to serve you and I want to thank them for all their tremendous efforts and I encourage them to use that because it's very fast, they don't have to wait and they can make their own decisions about where they want to get vaccinated. So in closing, I just want to, first of all, thank Minister Dix for the opportunity to be part of this incredible opportunity to be part of vaccinating our public. I want to thank our public for coming forward and, you know, really putting us in a position where we have, you know, a lot of people who have been vaccinated in British Columbia and thank them for their enthusiasm already for the booster campaign which we hope to be wrapping up even earlier than we had committed a couple of weeks ago. So thank you so much. Minister? Thank you very much, Dr. Bell, and Dr. Henry. This is obviously an extremely challenging time yesterday on roughly 17,000 tests across BC, we announced test positive cases of 4,383, which was the most by a significant margin that had ever been announced in a single day in BC, and this follows, of course, other jurisdictions, France, 200,000 and so on, in a single day that had been announced in jurisdictions across the country where record numbers of cases and test positivity had been seen. Daily test positive, as I said yesterday, was 23.85%. The week, the 7-day average, was 16.66%, which is obviously significantly more than the 3% we had at the beginning of this month and the 3% in declining we had in test positivity at that time. And it's happening, of course, everywhere and it's happening to people in communities across BC, test positivity is similar in every health authority, whether you're in Vancouver or Prince George, Victoria, Campbell River, Cranbrook or Kelowna, the line of concern can find you. It's a challenge for all of us, no matter where we live. We've also been learning, of course, as we have throughout this pandemic, about the steps that we can take, all of us can take, to exercise control. One of this is the changes we've made in our Q-care system to ensure that we have the capacity and the staff able to deal with potential hospitalizations from the Omicron variant of concern that we are expecting in the weeks to come. The latest numbers show only 211 people, I say only because this number is lower than it has been in recent months overall in hospital and currently 66 people in critical care. And across our hospitals, our census is about 8,800 yesterday. On 9,229 base beds, there's also an additional 2,353 surge beds for 11,582 total beds. In critical care, our hospital is currently in critical care. Our census was about 420 yesterday on 510 base beds, 218 surge beds. And we will continue as we can, as we do in this period normally and as we attempt to reduce our existing population so that we have space and are ready for others. These are the steps we did. This is how we exercise control. Our acute care system has been resilient. And what healthcare workers have done is to take the biggest tests. This may be as big a test as we have faced through this pandemic. And so we are taking those steps and we need everyone to take those steps to exercise the control we have. With cases, numbers rising like this, there's a sense of lack of control. But we have control. Control means this evening limited gatherings. Celebrate with the ones you love. Control means limited gatherings in general. Control means staying home when you're sick. Control means wearing your mask. Control means washing your hands. Control means when invited to be vaccinated, to book an appointment and to get vaccinated. And British Columbians, from the beginning of this pandemic, on all of these measures have been exercising that. And together we have been facing significant challenges throughout the last 22 months. And we will face those challenges as we move into the next phase of the booster campaign in 2022. As Dr. Balm has said, 905,700 people have received their booster doses. This is about 175,000 more than we had planned for, which reflects the work of people in our system and the extraordinary work of Dr. Balm and her team. And that number will grow and grow significantly as we move into the next phase of the booster campaign. As Dr. Balm has explained, now that we move forward with invitations to people based on when people got their second doses. When you get your invitation, book your appointment and get your booster. As Dr. Balm has said, 240,000 people have received invitations and not booked their appointment as of this point. And I say to them as we expand the number of invitations we send out, this would be a good day. This would be a good day. When you are one of those people in the community, you are one of those people who are going to be able to get their booster in their care. Because you have vulnerability to COVID-19, this would be a good day. Final day of 2021. To book your booster dose. And I encourage everyone to do so. One of the reasons we have one of the strongest vaccination programs in the world is the work of volunteers, retired healthcare workers, medical students, first responders and others have stepped up to make sure British Columbians' campaign began more than a year ago now. I want to thank every British Columbian who has volunteered for the booster effort. And I want to encourage others who are able to join the effort. Every volunteer means more British Columbians getting boosters faster. If you can help, register today with your local health authority or email bcvaccinemanagement program. All one word. Program is P-R-O-G-R-A-M. This will be part of our bulletin today. We have seen tremendous sacrifice by people following public health orders. I just want to note the decision made today to limit visitation to long-term care. A hard decision for all of us, for those of us such as myself, but many others who have family members in long-term care. These are difficult and challenging steps to take, but necessary to protect residents in this moment. And we all know that the challenges that health care workers will face in long-term care and are due to the challenges of the concern and it's moved through populations and health care workers are not excluded from that. I also want to finally report on surgeries that in the week November 28th to December 4th, our most recent reporting period, 6,951 surgeries were completed in British Columbia, which is essentially the same number as was completed in 2019. And that same week in 2019, an extraordinary achievement when you consider all that was going on in our health care system, including because of the Delta variant, the move of many patients from the north to other parts of British Columbia. And while urgent and non-urgent surgeries are continuing throughout the province from December 19th to 25th, health authorities postponed in that period, 110 non-urgent schedule surgeries, 3 in Fraser Health, 66 in Fraser Coastal Health, 41 in Interior Health. Cumulatively, from September 5th to December 25th, there have been 3,991 surgical postponements due to regional surges of COVID and factors including severe weather patterns. Last week, we announced several measures to help slow the spread of Omicron in our communities and keep people safe. At this point in our pandemic, after all we've covered in charting our progress and fulfilling our surgical efforts, we need to make sure that we understand how patients in need of surgery are anxious about it. You bet they're anxious about it. Every one of those surgeries I referred to is medically necessary. And it is difficult for everyone who is doing this work who completed the 6,900 surgeries in the most recent reporting week, all the people, the staff, the families, everyone involved knows the importance of this. It is important to remember that every one of those surgeries is slowing Omicron's spread. Every British Columbian who pauses their surgery is in effect making an enormous sacrifice for the rest of us. For those patients whose surgeries have been postponed in the past few weeks and those who surgeries may be impacted in January, you have our thanks and you have our commitment that we will get each and every one of those surgeries to make sure you. For me, what marks our pandemic most is not the difficult moments like now, but the critical moments in them where we have shown our resolve, our commitment to the needs of one another and our willingness to do what is asked of us and what is required to keep people safe. The generosity and the love people have shown one another in 2021 is moving time and time again in each of those surgeries. Whatever lives ahead with Omicron, whatever else lives ahead in 2022 or any year, that is something we must never forget about ourselves. With that, I am happy to take your questions. We are happy to take your questions. Thank you. As a reminder to media on the phone, please press star 1 to enter the queue. You will be limited to one question and one follow-up. Please also remember to take your phone at the city news. Please go ahead. Good morning. I think many people will be very excited to hear that things are moving ahead. I think there is going to be a great amount of frustration that it is only coming now. The call out to people to help the vaccination campaign and at locations to increase the vaccination campaign are just being done. When we heard from nurses and others weeks ago saying that they were willing to step up, so why the vaccination campaign is going to go on for the next few weeks now, is that the majority of people will have five weeks and will depend on locations? I am wondering how that will work. I will start and then let Dr. Val. I think we have been, of course, planning. You can't change these venues and ramp up everything in a very short period of time. Of course, we had a very measured approach to this and our focus has been on this first and that has been the overwhelming priority. But we have been focusing on this group of people getting to six months and have been planning for several weeks to ramp this up. And we have also brought on volunteers in the clinics that we have in place and really importantly we have expanded the work through pharmacies. So no, the average will not be five weeks. That is our absolute outside. Our intent is to get most people vaccinated and their booster dose within one to two weeks of their invitation. Do you want to add to that? Yes, thanks so much, Dr. Henry. I think we have been anticipating this with the onset of Omicron. It became evident over those two to three weeks prior to Christmas that we are going to have to make a switch. So the work has been going on. We have lease facilities. We are reaching out to immunizers. We are ready to staff and book. As Dr. Henry says, we are shooting for a two to three week average over the beginning of January and that will get better. And we will bring capacity on literally day by day. So we are extremely grateful and enthusiastic about the response we have had from immunizers. We need to schedule them in now across the province and do our very best to continue to expedite our booster campaign. I was going to say that I think that part of the issue of the booster campaign is that we announced our plan in and laid it out in detail. On October 26, Dr. Ballum, Dr. Henry, did that at that time. Since then, we have increased and we are over what we had planned for by 175,000 administered doses, 175,000 more than we planned to. Concurrently and after that, children 5 to 11 became eligible for the pediatric vaccine. We have been able to get a very significant number. 38% have already been vaccinated, 48% have registered, we encourage everyone to get registered. So we are dramatically ahead of the schedule that we put together on October 26. And week on to week, 514 pharmacy locations now available, 254 to be added this week, another 200 by the middle of January. And I can tell you as well that for those people who have received their invitations, including those who have not booked, there are in all health authorities, not in all communities, but in all health authorities, vaccine appointments available in January 2. Even in Vancouver, Coastal Health, there is a relatively higher uptake in vaccinations. And so this has been an extraordinary effort and we are building it out. And as you will recall, when we laid out our plan on October 26, that the six month interval is important. And we are ready to those who are most vulnerable. And that program has been successful. So I think we are ahead of where we want it to be, where we expect it to be. And this is because you don't do 175,000 more boosters than planned if you are not bringing on resources and staff and locations and clinics. And this isn't done by machines, this is done by people who have given their heart and their soul to this program. So many, but I'll stick with one. You mentioned earlier on, and I can't remember if it was Dr. Henry or Hugh or you, Minister Dix, about this being a mitigation approach. I think I, like many, most people now know a lot of people who have COVID whereas until now we have not known anyone personally who has. And looking at sending kids back to school about work going back, it just seems that everybody is going to get it and this is just a measure to spread it out. Is there a way to avoid this virus at this point or is it just a matter of time for everyone? Really, really good questions, Lisa. The virus has changed. And so yes, the way it is spreading now and spreading much more rapidly, and that makes it really challenging because people are spreading it to those they are gathering with and those they are gathering with themselves. So a lot of what we have done has been really successful at making sure that we are not getting severe illness. So the fact that we have really high immunizations means that the virus is no longer causing the types of severe illness we saw even with Delta a few weeks ago. So it absolutely has changed, but it is also spreading really rapidly. So everybody is going to be exposed. And so we have to try and prevent us from getting sick and from passing it on to others if we get sick. And I think we have to accept that because the virus has changed to adapt to the fact that we have all taken these protective measures, it means that it is spreading more rapidly and we just have to try and do the best we can to stop that wave from flatten it down. If you have 4,000 people in the country, then when we had 400 cases and 1% hospitalized, so we need to balance that out right now. There is no, I think, I don't know anybody who doesn't know somebody who has had it recently. And that is a reflection of the virus changing. And so it is no reflection on the things we are doing. How we are protecting each other and protecting ourselves is by the very high immunization rate we have. And that is why we are focused on people most at risk. It does help as well get more antibodies in our blood. So that does help protect against infection, but it is not 100% either. So we are seeing a lot of infection and now it is affecting people's ability to go to work or go to school. So yes, there are things that we can do. One, we know that it is spread with people we are seeing with people we know that it is spread with people who are in the outdoors more than outdoors. So keeping those groups small, and that is why it is really important tonight. This is not a night to go party, because it is inevitable that somebody you are with is incubating or is able to spread this virus and may not even realize it themselves yet. And we have seen that happen in many places, doing all of those things that we had in place that prevented spread in the past and making sure that we are staying away from those who are most vulnerable if we have had anybody in our social circle or in our family and group that has been positive for COVID. This wave is going to go through fast. What we have seen in other places and what we need to do together to get us through this wave too. Our next question is from Richard Zussman, Global News. Please go ahead. If I understand this correctly, 800,000 people have now just become eligible to get their boosters. While you are also saying that they are continued to be priority groups, pregnant women at six months. There was one mentioned at one point about essential workers at six months but no clarity. Not at six months yet with two AstraZeneca. I have no idea anymore how quickly I could get my booster or anyone else could get their booster with 800,000 people now in the system. At our peak, I think we were vaccinating 80,000 a day. How long are people going to wait here to actually get a vaccine considering there seems to be all these people that can now get it? So that's why our invitation system does it in a systematic way over a few days, so not every 800,000 are going to get their invite tomorrow, it's going to be based on that 182 days. So yes, if you're a pregnant person right now, call into the call centre and identify and you can get an appointment. But what we are doing and what we have been talking about today is ramping up the number of people who are vaccinated in the last few weeks. And you at six months, I think it's been pretty consistent in the last month or so that at that 182 days you get your invite. So wait for it. It will be coming. Richard, did you have a follow-up? Rebecca has put in hugely significant restrictions. I think British Columbia, as you know, Dr Henry is a very good person. Should we anticipate additional restrictions here? Are there any plans to significantly reduce capacity for venues as we have seen Ontario now do? When can we anticipate further measures to help curb the spread? Yes. So obviously I watch very carefully what's happening and have been in contact with my colleagues across the country multiple times. So from the very beginning we have managed our own pandemic. And there are some things that are different and there are some things that are very similar to what's happening in other parts of the country. We've seen that over the last little while where Delta became a really challenging issue for us to deal with not so much in some other parts of the country. But part of that is a Delta wave that had just been starting in Quebec. So much of their hospitalization is not necessarily related to Omicron but is at the same time where Omicron is causing healthcare workers to become sick as well. So the challenges are different in our different communities. We are using the data that we have here in BC and watching the patterns that we are seeing here. So the measures we are taking are to address what we are seeing and where we are seeing spread here in BC. So yes, we have made some changes this week. The one today that is most significant, of course, is the issue of trying to protect our long-term care homes through this wave. It will be the hospitalizations in ICU cases that will be driving if we need to do that. But we have also put in place some measures earlier than what we saw in other places that seem to be making a difference as well. Particularly, I know how challenging it is for many people in the restaurant and food and beverage industry and the entertainment industry, but not having those parties over this last few weeks is going to be really, really important for helping us slow this spread. Thank you very much. The next question is from Amanda Lattario, CFJC news. Please go ahead. Minister Dix, many smaller gyms have decided to stay open in the interior region despite public health orders to close. Will they be shut down? Public health orders will be enforced and I suggest that people follow them because they make all of us safer. These measures weren't put to shut anything down or to limit any activity. In fact, most of these are activities, but this includes many of the activities that are restricted in these times because of the Omicron variant of concern. There are things that we could do safely, that in normal times are good for us that we can't do right now because of the extraordinary explosion of cases of Omicron and of COVID-19 in the region. I think that they follow these orders, which were put in place seriously, thoughtfully and reluctantly and do so until January 18th when those orders will be renewed. So we will be moving as we have throughout the pandemic to enforce those orders. We don't want to engage in enforcement actions because frankly, we are busy. What we would like people to do is to do this for people in the fitness industry who have done a very good job through this period, through this period of 2021 in dealing as we have dealt with previous waves. But the Omicron variant of concern, as Dr Henry has said, everyone in every jurisdiction has said is different. And it doesn't allow us to do some of the things that we could do before without promoting the spread of the Omicron variant of the Omicron variant. So, Dr Henry, did you have a follow-up? Yes, for Dr Henry. We were told by Interior Health yesterday that it's not necessary to make an appointment to pick up a rapid test if you need the COVID-19 symptoms criteria, but we're hearing that a collection centre in Kamloops is not giving rapid tests out unless people have an appointment. Would you be able to clarify what the protocol is for them? And how many tests they have? So, I think you'll have to follow up with Interior Health on that one. Our next question is for Melissa Teebo, CTV. Please go ahead. Hi, this is for Dr Henry. You had mentioned right off the topic, you were concerned about staffing levels in health care workers in particular. And on Wednesday, you'd mentioned that the province was considering following a Quebec's lead in changing the requirements for staff who are sick or who have been exposed to come back to work. Has there been any development on that since Wednesday? Yes, I know Quebec has been talking about this because their need is most acute. But from the very beginning, one of the things that we do in planning for our health care through a pandemic is to have different things in place to supplement staffing. So, yes, we have been redoing that, looking at things like people who can be moved around, where we get casual pools, all of the different things that we can have in place, extending hours, all of those other things that are very, very challenging after 22 months of a pandemic. One of those is a last resort is looking at fitness to work for people who are ill with COVID. Obviously, that is not something we want to have to do. And we are taking other measures like you saw today, reducing visitors to long-term cares, a measure that helps preserve healthcare workers, because we can use them instead of screening visitors, for example, to supplement healthcare workers who are off ill. So, there are many, many things that we have in place. But, yes, as part of our pandemic planning, we do have what we call a fitness for work protocols. And I have asked the occupational health team to dust those off with such a high number of healthcare workers off that we cannot safely provide care, that those who have very mild symptoms or who are asymptomatic could work in some scenarios while they are in why they have the infection. So, that is something that we don't want to do. And I said this on Wednesday, having people go to work sick is not something that we ever want to do, and particularly not in healthcare. And we want to make sure that it's done only under certain protocols with safety measures in place and in certain parts of our healthcare system, for example, working with COVID patients, not working on a high-risk unit, for example. So, yes, that is part of what we do for our healthcare, health human resource planning for a pandemic. And we have asked the team to ask them if we need them. Melissa, did you have a follow-up? Yes, and so, I guess you also mentioned that you're trying to recruit healthcare workers and doctors to try to ramp up the immunization program. So, like, are there enough workers to be able to carry out these vaccine appointments? And also, we've been hearing that N95 masks seem to be a big sticking point within the healthcare industry. A lot of doctors are saying that they're trying to encourage more people to sign up for the vaccination program. Two different issues there. So, respirators in N95s are used in the healthcare system when you're dealing with people with COVID, particularly in ICU or in the emergency department where the environment is very challenging. That's the focus. But vaccination clinics are not high-risk clinics for COVID infection. They're where people go who are not infected. The healthcare workers are not infected. And we go back to our basics of infection prevention and control. So, the clinics are designed. That's what we have what we call a hierarchy of controls, administrative controls, things like booking appointments. So, you have a certain number of people within the space. Making sure ventilation is appropriate. Having the immunization table spaced apart, making sure that they come in, that they wear a mask, that the healthcare workers or the immunizers wear masks and face shields, and have all the appropriate PPE or space from each other, and don't gather together with their masks off and have lunch together. So, those are all the things that we have in place. And in immunization clinics, which make them very safe. So, a respirator is, that's probably one of the least places that you would require it. So, it's available as part of the PPE that's in across our healthcare system. We have time for one more question. Our final question today is from John Hernandez, CBC. Please go ahead. Good morning. Dr. Henry, regarding the change to isolation time for fully vaxed people to five days, is it up to individual employers to determine if an employee can return to work when they have no fever but mild symptoms, especially in non- COVID-19 day policy in place? So, is your message to them to review that? Yes, that is. I think, you know, I'm hearing from many different parts of industry that they're concerned about people being ill right now as this wave is coming through. So, this is my advice for people who have mild or no symptoms at all, that five days is an appropriate isolation period with the wearing of masks in all of those settings for an additional five days. Each setting will have to figure out, every workplace will have to figure out how that fits into their business continuity planning, making sure that we have other things in place. So, if you're working in a food processing plant, we need to make sure that there are things to protect the other workers. It is a mitigation strategy. There is a small risk that some workers, that's why it's important to continue to wear masks, to have the distancing and the ventilation and the barriers and those other things in place. But, yes, it is a measure to help address some of the worker illness that we are starting to see and is likely to get more acute over the next little while. So, we're happy to work as we have all along with WorkSafe and with industries to help them beef up the COVID safety plans and how does this work to make sure that workers are protected in their workplace, too. John, did you have a follow-up? Yes, I do, and I'll ask you to get both answers and friends again after this one here. But, when it comes to the booster dose program, why do you think we aren't seeing the buy-in from some people? Why do you think there's that 240,000 unbooked invitations? Those people clearly aren't going to be able to do that. And, you know, it's just the last day of 2021. Do you think we'll still be your last day of 2022? I don't know. I hope not. You know, it's hard to know. We've heard from some people that they've actually got their boosters other places that may not have put them into the system. We've also, you know, there was a proportion of people who have left the province or who aren't here . There are some people who are just not convenient for them or they don't feel they wanted it at this point, including some health care workers who haven't got around to it yet, so we're really putting a push on to try and encourage health care workers. It's important for us to do everything we can to make sure we can stay healthy. I don't know if there's additional reasons, but those are some of the things that come to mind. We have an appointment available and we want to tell you to go back and try again because we have wrapped up the number of places and the appointments that are available. And now with pharmacies coming on, it makes it much easier in many different communities to be able to go to your pharmacy. I just want to emphasize when people are booking, the default for proximity is 10 kilometres. You can change that and broaden that especially for those who are close to transit in many cases or have a car that's, you know, one can go 20, 30, 40 and then suddenly there are significantly more appointments available. I think people are enthusiastic about the booster dose campaign. I get questions and requests and certainly requests personally through e-mail and others all the time. So I think there's enthusiasm. We have done more than 900,000 boosters in BC. It tracks slightly behind, I'd say, second doses in general. And as you say, all the people who, by definition, are getting booster doses have had, who are eligible for booster doses have had two doses. So I think it's too early to say there is lack of enthusiasm. What I'm saying to people who have had their invitation is this is the moment. Either through our phone line or at our get vaccinated website to book your appointment. And I know people booked appointments in the city of Vancouver where there's high demand on January the 2nd. And it's so today. So there's opportunities to do so. Getting it done, getting that over with and getting that protection will be important for people and I encourage everybody to do so. I think it's not just in the current situation. We're also seeing that the number of vaccines we have as a vaccination program is rising in British Columbia. We have a number of vaccinations in the world, so we're also seeing a number of vaccines in the UK which is extraordinary compared to almost all other jurisdictions in the world. And I think that will continue with the 13th dose. It was more rewarding to find a third dose, but of course, with Omicron and its effect in our society and in the health of people. Now is the time to receive a third dose. If we are in a category, we can do it. We had a second dose six months ago. So this is the moment. I encourage everyone to do it in the days and weeks to come. I appreciate all of our people in our vaccination campaign, Dr Ballum and all of his team for the remarkable effort, for months and for a year in this unique vaccination campaign in the world. And I think now is the time to participate. It's the time for everyone to participate. And I encourage everyone to do it. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. We'll see you on Tuesday.