 Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Adrian Dix. I'm BC's Minister of Health. To my right is Dr Bonnie Henry, BC's provincial health officer. This is our COVID-19 briefing for Thursday, March 10, 2022. Dr Henry and I are honored to be here on the territory of the Lula-Quangan speaking people of the Songhees and the Esquimalt First Nations. Dr Henry will be referring to a power point which will be available on social media and on government websites including the BCCDC and Gov.Business. We will be referring to a power point which will be available on social media and on government websites including the BCCDC and Gov.Business.ca. With that, it's my honor to introduce Dr Bonnie Henry. Thank you very much and good afternoon today. We're going to walk through where we are in the pandemic and talk about where we're going next. To start with, where we are today, we are progressing well and we're going in the right direction. And it really is thanks to people in British Columbia stepping up and doing what we needed to do. We now have over 55% of children, 5 to 11 who have been vaccinated, 90, over 90% of British Columbians 12 and over have received their first dose of vaccine, sorry, two doses of vaccine and about 56% of people have received that important booster dose. Our hospitalizations continue to decrease, which is also really good news. If we look at it in the first dose, we're going to look at it in the first dose, if we look at it in terms of our epidemic curve, we see that our cases of lab-confirmed cases have come down dramatically in the last few weeks. But really importantly, our hospitalizations have also decreased and the number of people in critical care has decreased. This is encouraging because as transmission goes down, so the risks to all of us go down in the community. Our approach has always been to only have the minimal necessary restrictions to keep people safe and to prevent the transmission, particularly to those who are more susceptible to severe illness with COVID-19. It is finding that balance. I am incredibly grateful to the millions of people throughout our province for your willingness and support in adopting our COVID-19 safety measures. Your efforts, combined with these high vaccination rates, have saved countless lives. Together we have done what is right at the right time. And now we are in a place where we can once again adjust our approach. If we look at our hospitalization rates, another important measure of course is by age. And we know that it continues to be our elders and seniors across our communities who are more at risk of severe illness and hospitalization. And thankfully that continues to come down as well. We have a number of different surveillance measures that we have been following closely. One of them of course is wastewater surveillance and we see a consistent decrease in low levels of virus now being detected in wastewater. And so that is also another important measure that helps us understand where we are in terms of risk in our communities. If we compare where we are compared to other jurisdictions across the country, we see that we have a lower peak and a slower peak than many other places. And our hospital admissions specifically have decreased by about 34% in the last month to less than 100 new admissions each day. We also know that with the Omicron variant that has come into play in the last few months here in British Columbia that admissions to hospital with COVID have decreased more than people who have been detected with COVID. And if we can, the same comparisons with other jurisdictions around the world, we see that the actions that we have taken here in British Columbia and people have stepped up and been vaccinated has meant that we have fared well compared to many other jurisdictions in the country. If we look at our hospitalizations compared to the modeling that we have been following over the last few months in particular, we see that we have tracked along where we have been in the last few months with the rate of vaccination and immunity that we have in our community and with people taking those measures that we put in place to prevent transmission. And we expect that to continue as we are in a good place today. We are one of the most vaccinated jurisdictions in the world. And that layer, that protection that we get through vaccination and that immunity that we have across our communities has meant that we have been vaccinated for the last few months. And we have been vaccinated for the last few months. And yes, the risk of infection with Omicron and the protection that we get from two doses of vaccine is less than with some of the other variants. But we have seen very strong protection against severe illness. And we do know that people with two doses of vaccine are less likely to get infected themselves, less likely to get infected with that booster dose, bumps it up to over 60% protection against any infection. And that again protects against transmission to others. We also on this slide have put in some of the additional immunity that we have in our community from people who have been infected, particularly recently with Omicron. To give you a sense of the small proportion that is also an increase of protection that we have with people who have two doses of vaccine on board who got infected with Omicron, most of whom thankfully had a relatively mild illness, have a good, strong booster effect from that infection as well. This means that the level of immunity that we have across BC right now means that we can take some of the tools that we have been using consistently and repeatedly and relax some of these measures. The most, just to follow up on our whole genome sequencing that we have been doing, we can see that red is when Omicron came on board, we are starting to see some geographic changes in variants that are all considered Omicron. But as we see, as it replicates, it can change slightly. And we have seen the BA1, which is the lighter red, and BA1.1, which has increased in the recent weeks. And a little bit of an increase in the BA2. That is one that we have been watching carefully around the world because it does seem to have even increased infectiousness. But so far, we are not seeing rapid growth in that. And as numbers of cases have come down, while the percentage is going up, the absolute number of people with BA2 is actually going down as well. And it tells us again that as we are doing this, we are getting a little bit better. So what does that mean for us now? With the science and our data top of mind, it clearly shows that our risks now are much lower. They are not zero and we are not fully out of this yet, but I feel confident that we can safely make some further changes. For many months now, we have had a number of tools in our toolkit that have helped us to get to this point. We are doing some of our available tools some of the time because we are in a lower risk place. As of 12.01 tomorrow, so not 11.59, 12.01, March 11, the following changes to the provincial health officer ordinance and guidelines will come into effect. Firstly, I will be repealing the face covering order. The order restricting overnight child and youth camps that will be of particular interest to some parents in particular and camp operators. This was the order that required that a specific COVID safety plan be in place and be approved by MHOs so we can now start to plan for having summer camps for children and youth. We are going to restore the visitation policies that we had in long-term care prior to the additional measures that we put in place for Omicron. That means starting a week from tomorrow on March 18, we will be restoring a long-term care visitation and the goal will be to increase visitation and opportunities for connection between residents and families while continuing to protect those we know are most vulnerable to serious illness. We know that there are some challenges across the board, but including in long-term care with things like staff shortages and operators may need to manage their visitation based on the situation with each individual care home, so what I'm asking for is patients, over the coming week all of the care home operators will communicate with families around their plans for resuming broader social visitation. In some cases, depending on the individual situation, this may mean planning visits in advance or spacing them out because of need. The requirements for being fully vaccinated will continue to be in place with rapid tests on entry to long-term care. So just to talk a little bit more about repealing the face coverings order, what this means is that masks will no longer be mandatory in those broad ranges of indoor environments that this order sets out. However, some settings will still require that you wear a mask. For example, for healthcare settings, physicians' offices, patients' contacts, but most low-risk locations, it will now be an option and no longer a necessity. Critical to success, though, as we move through this transition phase, is for everybody to move at your own pace. We have learned and we know now a lot more about masks than we did a few years ago. They are both a layer of protection for ourselves and, importantly, a layer of protection for those around us. So while masks are no longer required or mandated under an order as of tomorrow, some people in some locations will and continue to use masks personally or in their business, and that's okay. We need to support that. We need to recognize that we all have our own risks and our own vulnerabilities. And particularly if you are older, if you're immune compromised, you may still be able to use masks, especially if you're inside or around a large number of people that you don't know. If you've not yet had your booster or your children are not yet vaccinated, then masks continue to be a very important protective layer that you may want to continue to use, especially in larger crowds and indoors. If we, in part of the mask order, was that COVID safety plans needed to include masks that are no longer unordered, but in many workplaces, masks will still be required. They just will no longer be mandated in those areas. Masks continue to be encouraged in some of those settings where we have to get close to other people and we can't necessarily avoid it in things like public transit and on BC ferries. But they're no longer, as I said, mandated under an order. They're no longer required in the early childhood education and our K-12 sector. So childcare guidelines, we're going to be revising them, we're in the process of revising them with our childcare and early childhood educators, stakeholders, and they will be updated to reflect the different risk levels and the use of masks. And the K-12 school guidelines as well. This means that masks will no longer be available once children and staff return from spring break. So we recognize that spring break is slightly different in 60 school districts across the province. Some good portions start tomorrow and a number start the end of next week. And so what we have done is made sure that all of the revisions in the guidance will come into play when you return from spring break at whenever that is and when you return from spring break at any time. Additionally, those workplaces that are federally regulated will need to continue to follow federal health orders and guidelines around workplaces. So what's ahead? In addition to the changes in orders and guidance for today that starts soon, we intend to remove additional orders in another four weeks effective Friday, April 8th. And that is of course assuming that the workplaces will continue to improve. These will include the BC vaccine card will no longer be required in those indoor settings and higher risk settings and events. And the businesses will transition from the workplace safety order which requires COVID-19 specific safety plans to the previous plans that we had in place last summer, the communicable disease plans. So those will be specific to each other. In addition, we're going to be repealing an order that requires post-secondary students who live in residence to be vaccinated. And workplaces will transition back to this requirement rather than having the broader communicable disease plans in place. Sorry. So those are going to be effective on April 8th. As we said, we're going to take a balanced and transition approach over the next few weeks. I do also want to talk about the regulated health professionals order. As you know earlier this week, we published the current part of the order that requires regulated health professionals to report to their college, their vaccination status by the end of March. And this has been a change in how we're approaching this order, given the situation that we're in right now, but also given our ongoing consultation with the various colleges that are affected. So we want to ensure that colleges had the ability to collect that information from registrants and to do it in a potential, as well as making sure that we had the ability to provide options to people in the regulated health professions, including the new protein subunit vaccines like Novavax. And there has been a delay in our receipt of Novavax. We had expected it to be in the province by last week. And it looks like now we may not receive it until either the 3rd or last week of March. So I think that's a very important consideration, both for those people who already have been affected by orders in their workplaces, but also for the regulated health professions. We are taking then a measured approach based on the risk and impact with each individual college as we go forward. So that means we will have in place a measure for informed consent so that people can understand that there will be disclosure to clients or patients of vaccination status for some of the regulated health professions. And for others there may be additional measures that we need in place. So yes, this is different from our original vision, people not being able to practice if they were not vaccinated by March 24. We have been working through the specifics with each individual college and based on the risks within each profession, there will be a component, a public reporting, as I said, and then we will continue to take additional measures as needed, considering the important impact on employees from each individual provider. I do want to say as well that our aim is to be consistent with the healthcare worker order that we already have in place that has been so important in supporting us, particularly through the Delta and Omicron waves in our healthcare sector, in health authorities and hospitals in the community. It is an important measure that ensures we have continued high level of immunity in our healthcare sector as we go through this transition phase and we will continue to continue to do so. We are not yet at the place where we are not enough and we know the patterns and the changes that this virus will undergo and to be able to call it endemic. But we are learning to live with it in a more sustainable way at the same time as supporting people to recover from the measures that we have been through for the long term. While we are able to announce these changes today, it is very important that we continue to follow our safety basics as much as possible to keep COVID-19 low and slow. In particular, I continue to strongly urge you to ensure everyone in your family is vaccinated and have your booster if you have not already done so. These are layers that are important for us to be using all the time. We are prepared for what the virus may bring next. And there are many different scenarios that we are working through to make sure we understand the potential, particularly as we go into the fall. But right now, the important things all of us need to do are monitor ourselves for symptoms, making sure we stay home if we are feeling unwell, get tested and we now have increasing access to rapid antigen tests to help people stay home if we are not well. Getting boosted and ensuring we get vaccinated. And importantly, as we have done through this whole pandemic, we need to respect people's comfort levels and their own risk levels. And we have talked about this in a number of different ways. We all have our own risk and we may not be aware of the risks of those around us. We need to be respectful and we need to have choices to keep their gathering small or to stay outside rather than inside. And while today is another really positive step forward, we have to be ready to bring some tools back if necessary depending on the situation as it changes. We are also paying a lot of attention about what's going to happen next. It's become clear to us that COVID is going to be with us. That SARS-CoV-2, this virus is going to be the one of the things that we need to do. It means that we have to add it as another virus that we need to pay attention to and manage in an ongoing basis along with the other serious respiratory illnesses like influenza and RSV. And so that is the position that we are taking, that we are looking at through what are the surveillance mechanisms, what do we need to monitor over time to help the impact on hospitals and our healthcare system. So we are continuing to do population-level sentinel surveillance and we will be integrating it with our influenza and RSV surveillance over the coming months. We will continue to do facility-based monitoring and long-term care. We have systematic early warning signals through things like our wastewater surveillance which will be expanding to more communities and to include more pathogens, more vaccines, more drugs. We will also be doing systematic targeted serological surveillance. We have done that at periodic times where we have tested samples of blood from people in the community by age to determine levels of immunity and that is one of the reasons why we could present the data that I showed earlier. And we will continue with our whole genome sequencing to understand how this virus is changing over time. It makes some people very uncomfortable. It has been a long and trying two years. Our masks and other safety layers have provided a level of comfort and protection for all of us and it is why it is important for everybody to move at our own pace. I want to assure you that I feel confident about what we are doing and that we are in a place to do this now. These decisions are grounded in science and in the data that we have brought to the table where we are right now. We are able to make these changes and the ones that are ahead for two very important reasons. First, because people in British Columbia have stepped up and protected themselves and their families by getting vaccinated. And second, because people have followed these safety measures we have put in place when it was necessary to do so, the need for every single one of these particular layers of protection has dropped and we need to have an order for them to be in place. That means we can move from a mandated approach to an empowered self-management approach. We have all learned how to wear masks and when it is important. We have learned about the importance of staying away from others if we are feeling unwell and when to get a test. These are all things that we will need to continue to have to manage ourselves. It is a good place for us to be. We are able to continue this path at least for the spring and summer months ahead. We have that high level of immunity and understanding right now. But we will continue to do this with respect for each other and for our own decisions, whether it is wearing a mask, whether it is gathering outside, whether it is taking the same cautious approach that has gotten you through this far and we need to continue to do this with compassion for each other . Thank you, Dr Henry. Today I will provide an update to give more, lots of opportunity for members of the media to ask questions. An update on rapid tests and surgical renewal. But first I want to express my thanks to British Colombians for their significant efforts and willingness to make sacrifices to keep themselves, their loved ones and our most vulnerable citizens safe. And special appreciation to the Minister of Health, to healthcare workers everywhere in BC. And all they have contributed at every level in home care and home support that people provide food and clean our hospitals and our long-term care facilities, our health sciences professionals, our ambulance paramedics, our doctors, our nurses, our healthcare workers, our care aides. They have been throughout this pandemic heroes to all of us. And to me, I want to express my appreciation for all that they have done. And I am proud that we have a healthcare system, 180,000 strong, 50,000 in long-term care, 130,000 in the main healthcare system, all of whom, every one of whom is vaccinated. How we have healthcare workers who are determined and committed to supporting all of us in a challenging time. We have today, we are going to have today when the numbers are announced, less than 400 people in long-term care. On top of all the other people who need healthcare every day, there are today 9,400 people. And of course people dealing with challenges in long-term care. And I must say that I was particularly happy with the proposals that Dr. Henry has made and that will be put in place to allow broader visitation in long-term care again for long-term care residents to have multiple visitors, all vaccinated, all tested, and all there to provide love and caring and engagement and support to people who live in long-term care to ensure that what we are doing, what we want long-term care to do, which is not just to be a place to support people who have sick people, but also a place where people, despite those health challenges, have the freedom to live and express themselves in their lives. I want to bring an update then on the number of rapid tests in BC. As of March 9th, BC has received 35,346,000 tests. We continue to prepare for the arrival of tests at approximately 3 million per week over the coming weeks. 26,048,282 tests have been deployed to key strategic areas. I have described those at length and future briefings, but I would be happy to describe them to members of the media who seek that information again. The total number of tests distributed through all our distribution channels across BC since our last briefing, that was March 1st, is 4,147,515. As previously noted, just over a half a million tests or 588,000 of our inventory are not set for deployment for personal use and are being used at the discretion of medical health officers in the appropriate settings. That leaves a current inventory of 8,742,000 tests suitable for self-administered use. To date, 4.4 million tests have been distributed to K-12 schools across the province. 2.1 million tests have been distributed to post-secondary institutions and 5.3 million tests have been sent to pharmacies. As announced last week, these tests are for British Columbians aged 60 and older to pick up a kit containing five tests of participating pharmacies. This age group is a priority for the health care unit. It is important to consider how serious consequences should they become infected. If they become symptomatic, the tests will allow them to determine if they may have COVID-19 so they can take the actions that are required. As of this morning, 1,323,430 tests have been dispensed by 1,287 pharmacies. Let's say that as of tomorrow, we will be lowering the age category for access to tests tomorrow to those 50 to 59. And for more information on accessing test kits, British Columbians can visit bcpharmacy.ca and I want to express my appreciation to pharmacists across British Columbia for all of their work both in our vaccination program and the influenza vaccination program and of course in the deployment of rapid tests. Increased test availability means that more members of the general population will be able to access tests to use to understand and take action to limit transmission to their family, friends, and work, including those at higher risk. I want to also provide an update to our surgical renewal initiative, health authorities report that in the week of February 6th to the 12th, 6,442 surgeries were completed in BC. And that's a significant number. We also wanted to say that from February 27th to March 5th, the most recent week, obviously before us, health authorities postponed 64 non-urgent scheduled surgeries. That number continues to decline. That's 1 in Fraser Health, 62 in Interior Health and 1 in Vancouver Coastal Health. No surgeries were postponed. Just wait for the bells. No surgeries were postponed in the Vancouver Island Health Authority or the Northern Health Authority or the provincial health services authority. Cumulatively from September 5th, 2021 to March 5th, 2022, regional surges of COVID-19 and factors including severe weather patterns have caused 8,098 surgical postponements. I would note that more than half of those post moments now have received their surgery, more than half, which is an exceptional achievement. And we will continue. Over the coming weeks to book surgeries, to get people the surgeries they need, our whole health care system is committed to that. And I am committed to that personally, but I know our outstanding surgeons and nurses and health care workers who are involved in this are committed to it. And I think it's significant to say that those re-booking of surgeries, I think, speaks of the work that all of us have done, that in the moments that mattered most in the Omicron wave, we each made the most of the spread of COVID. And in doing so, in reducing hospitalizations from 1,009 on January 31, to 388 today, we have had a major impact on our health care system in a positive way. It means now that we can re-book surgeries, but our work is not done, as Dr. Henry has said. The COVID-19 virus and the COVID-19 pandemic will continue to challenge us. The measures taken today will continue to challenge us. The measures taken today are a positive step, and they reflect where we stand today. But we are always humble for a virus which lives to transmit and finds different ways to transmit and humbled towards the people of B.C. who have in very challenging ways and difficult ways and ways that we could not have imagined when we formed our own emergency group to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, or two years ago tomorrow when the declaration of a pandemic was made, the sacrifice people have made and the things they have done for one another, and the kindness they have demonstrated to one another has been, I think, something that all British Columbians can take pride in. There will be more tests ahead, there will, and I know we are prepared to stand together in these important conditions to be careful, yes, to be safe, yes, and also to be kind. And I think that is, if there are lessons on this day, it's that the things that have allowed us to respond to the pandemic in the past are still with us, which is a great province, great people, and outstanding healthcare workers everywhere in B.C. And with that, I was about to say honorable speaker, how about that, I'm in the middle of this, but with that, all of you are happy to take your question. Thank you. A reminder to media on the line, please press star 1 to enter the queue, you will be limited to one question and one follow-up. Our first question comes from the room today, Richard Zassman, Global News. Some jurisdictions have decided to allow transit to keep masking for longer periods of time. You haven't done that here. You have been advised that highest risk, who are now going to be worried, just to walk into a grocery store or to complete the essentials of their life, considering that others around them may not be wearing their masks. I know this is going to be a challenging time for people who are feeling very much at risk and have taken those precautions over the last two years, just to say that we can look at what is happening in the future. We are all a little safer. And those environments where we were requiring to have multiple different layers of protection, we no longer need all of those layers to be mandated all of the time. So, yes, I will continue to wear my mask if I am on public transit, and I would encourage others to do so too. We know it protects us, but it is also a sign of respect and protection for others. But we also need to be clear that we are not going to wear masks when we go in them, so it is a matter of time and space and how close we are to people. So, let's continue to be respectful. Recognize that some people will need to continue to wear masks, and it will be important for them, and that we should keep a respectful distance for people so that we are not crowding them in places like grocery stores and other essential places. So, it is important for us to assess their own risk and the risk of those around them as we go through this next few weeks, and we hopefully will continue to see the risk go away. The other part, I think that is really important, is the vaccination of so many people, and the immunity that we have in our community now means that that risk is down quite a lot. So, it is going to take some time to make sure that you wear your mask and wear your own mask, as long as you feel comfortable doing that. Do you have a follow-up? I am trying to understand if transit or BC ferries can put in a mask mandate? Yes, absolutely. Some places may feel that it is important for their workers to be protected for various reasons, and they can require mask wearing. They can require the vaccine card in certain settings, but they need to know what that means and how that will impact their workplace. The next question comes from Justine Hunter, Globe and Mail. Thank you. Doctor, I understand that you have changed the plan, but I am just not clear, and I hope you can spell this out for me. Have you dropped the requirement for all regulated health care professionals to be vaccinated in order to work in BC? No, not entirely. What we have done is taken a look at the regulations, and we are taking a more nuanced risk-based approach for some that will mean that you must be vaccinated to get the vaccine that you mentioned. I wanted to ensure that we had options available, and just to be clear, these options like Novavax and the Medicago, the protein subunit vaccines are available for other workers who have stepped away from work, so other health care workers in our public system who are ready to be vaccinated. I encourage you to call the number and book a dose of Novavax. It should be in in the next few days. I will commit to the one part that we have been working with the colleges on is ensuring that there is a way for individual patients or clients to be informed and to have informed consent about their services that are being provided to them. Justine, do you have a follow-up? I do. Thank you. You have talked throughout the pandemic about using science and data to guide public health decisions. I'm wondering your thoughts on one of the province's chief medical officers citing as evidence to guide these decisions. A paper that argues the harms of punitive public health strategies may outweigh the benefits. That paper, as you know, is an opinion piece that was published on the social sciences network. It is something that reminds you that the public health measures are important. It is something that reminds us that there are consequences to the measures that we put in place. It is really important to take those into account. We have always tried to balance the risks and benefits of each measure that we put in place and to do it in a way that is thoughtful. I think we have done that in BC. From very early on, we have a group that has been working on measuring the COVID-19 speak survey to help understand the impacts, both of the measures that we put in place to manage COVID and the effects of the virus and the pandemic itself. Those are very important considerations. That is why we have limited where we have the BC vaccine card in effect, for example, where we have limited the mandates and the orders to try and put the least restrictive means in place as much as possible. We have limited the COVID-19 vaccine mandates focusing on those highest risk settings like healthcare settings. I think it is, in my opinion, a slightly biased opinion piece, but those are all very important considerations that we have looked at and we need to continue to monitor and to take into account as we put in or remove the restrictions that we have seen in place here. Next question comes from Rob Shaw, I just wanted, Dr. Henry, if you could compare where we were June 29th of last year when we lift masks the first time to where we are now. We had a lower vaccination rate, I think it was 32% double dose. We're at 91% now. We had 29 cases that day back then. We're at 270 something now. You've mentioned the higher vaccination rate, but what makes it different those two times, given that we had to bring masks back a few times versus where we are now when we lift them this time? I think the philosophy of where we are, the trajectory is the same in that you use the least amount of tools that are needed by a mandate, so by an order at the times when you can. So as cases were coming down, vaccination rates were high, the viruses, strains that we were dealing with at the time where the vaccination, the two doses was very protective. We saw cases come down. And we were optimistic that that might be the point where we would no longer need to put measures in place that required things like masking and other things that we put in place. And what happened was we were faced with yet another strain, another variant of concern that caused rapidly increasing cases. So all of those tools became important again, and that's where the importance of the BC vaccine card came into play, making sure that we did have vaccine available. And as you remember at that time, younger children were not yet eligible for vaccinations under 17, making sure that people did get their second dose. Boosting up the rates in those younger age groups where it was still lagging. So it was important. And as we saw the change in the virus and the patterns of vaccination and who was getting sick, we needed to add additional tools. So we're at a place now where we have a much higher level of community immunity, primarily from vaccination and a little bit from people who have had recent infections. And we're seeing that that means cases are decreasing. And the cases that are occurring are mostly milder. And so we need a new set of tools to help us get through this period. And we need to have all of the measures all of the time by way of an order. So I think in some ways we're in a very similar situation. If we start to see, this is one of the things that we've been working through with colleagues around the world, what's going to happen next? We think that there's very likely to continue to be strong protection from our cell mediated immunity against this virus. No matter how much it affects us. But that means that we may see similar things to what we saw with Omicron, where in fact justness, because the virus is trying to find ways to infect more people. So there may be changes that mean that we'll have to go back to having mask wearing in certain situations or capacity limits in certain situations. But I think we're in a good place right now where we don't need that for this period of time. I'm sure I guess just to follow up what you just said, there might be situations where we bring back some tools like masks or capacity limits. Could you foresee the vaccine card being brought back if things change? And also, do you expect to jump in cases or hospitalization or ICU rates in the short term as these masks come off? And if so, as we're watching these, what's kind of an acceptable or understood to be possible to see it? We may see a slight increase in cases, but I don't expect to see a jump in some of the modeling that helps us understand that. The potential impact shows that it's unlikely we may see a slight increase or a leveling off or a decrease in the decrease, but it's unlikely that we're going to see a spike right now because of the high level of immunity that we have. That's why I'm looking at the potential impact of COVID-19, and I'm looking at the potential impact of COVID-19 towards the fall and our respiratory season, because that's where the higher risk potential is, and there may be other things that we'll need to put in place. So it will depend, you know, I talked about an optimistic scenario is a virus that is not that much more, a strain that's not that much more and cause more severe disease, in which case we may have to bring back some of those additional measures, or we may have to have a new vaccine program, you know, I suspect we may need a targeted vaccine program, depending on who's getting infected, so it may be an additional dose for our elders, seniors, people in long-term care. So those are the things that we don't yet know, but that we need to have measures in place that we need to monitor for, and to have those tools that we all now know how to use and be prepared to bring them back if we need to. Next question, Binder Sajin, CTV. Hello there. I'm just wondering, I heard you speak about the high level of vaccination here in BC, and I'm sure other people are wondering as well, why are we waiting for weeks to remove the vaccine passport when we see other people in the area? Yeah, so it's been used in different ways in different provinces, so we had a very limited areas where the BC vaccine card was being used in those highest risk settings, and most of those settings, so if we think about a bar, a restaurant, a nightclub, an event, our settings where at least some of the time we don't wear masks, and so we need to mitigate the risk of infection, so we still have reasonably high transmission in our communities right now, so we are taking this in a stepwise and measured way, so that as people get used to being out and about without masks on in some settings, we still have the confidence to go to some of these higher risk indoor settings as well, so it is a transition period where we're going to be watching carefully to make sure we're not seeing the spike in the number of people who are vaccinated, so we do this in a way that supports people who are feeling still very vulnerable at this point in time. Binder, do you have a follow-up? I do, and I know you spoke about this a couple of times, but I'm just wondering for the healthcare workers who were terminated because they were subject to a mandate and didn't get vaccinated, does that mandate still apply to them, and also the tone of this press conference seems to be one of the most important ones for the public going forward? I'm going to run away for a long time. In terms of the healthcare worker mandate, yes, that remains in effect, it's really important, and I mentioned this that we have that baseline level of immunity, and we've seen how important immunization in our healthcare sector is, so what we are working on with the ministry and with our colleges and the healthcare professions and the health authorities is an ongoing policy that includes COVID immunization, but other immunizations that are important for us in terms of protecting healthcare resources or our health ourselves as well as making sure that we're doing everything we can to prevent transmission of communicable diseases, vaccine preventable diseases in our healthcare system. In terms of what we're doing, yes, we're not going to have an official media briefing for the next few weeks, but we will make sure that we have an update before April 8th to give people so that we are monitoring what we're doing. We'll be continuing with our daily issues briefs with the basic information in the dashboard for the next few weeks up until April, and then we'll be transitioning to a weekly surveillance report after that. Just to express my appreciation, as you know across the province, when the vaccination, proof of vaccination requirement was in place in the public health care system, 180,000 workers, including all those workers in long-term care, our health care workers stepped up in an exceptional way. It ended up being about 99% of workers getting vaccinated. It's my belief, strong belief that everyone should get vaccinated. There's some new opportunities and Novavax produces, provides a new opportunity now. I would know that you're about 30 times likely, 30 times more likely to be in critical care if you're unvaccinated in BC today with all of this. And it is absolutely, I think, necessary for people who are ready for their booster dose to get their booster dose. If you're interested in Novavax, that's 1-833-838-2 1-833-838-2 3, you can go on the list and we'll contact you and make arrangements for that. And if you're a parent of a child 5 to 11, there are opportunities all over BC for your child to be vaccinated as well. This is a crucial part of our response in terms of our briefings. Yes, this will be the last in what you call regular briefings, but as Dr. Henry has said, I would expect in the week of March that we will be seeing Dr. Henry himself again from Dr. Henry, probably some modeling to show where we are in the pandemic at that point. And we'll continue, of course, to be available on a regular basis to respond to questions about this and many other subjects. Next question comes from Lisa Cordasco, Vancouver Sun. Why have you decided that masks are no longer needed in schools or won't be soon when most children under the age of 11 are not vaccinated, regarding the K-12 and child care guidelines reviewed? Yes, so we know that schools are a very structured environment, which the same children that go in and out in the classrooms, in the child care settings, similar things. So we know that as risk goes down in the community, that's reflected in risk in structured lower environments in schools. So it absolutely will be a mask-positive environment. And those who continue to want to wear masks and are comfortable doing that will be supported to do that, both staff and students. But it will no longer be a mandate in classrooms in particular and in other parts of the school. So the education, we've been working with our education partners to revise those guidelines. They'll also include things around the school. There's been limits on people who can come in and out of the school on some of the additional measures we put in place for omicron around staggering of breaks and things like that, that will no longer be needed when we get to that point at the end of spring break. And it's a time of transition to help support children to getting back to a more next normal, I'm hearing it called, but a more important role in the growth and all of the other important things around the schools that support young children in particular. So it is trying to balance what's needed to protect kids and mitigate those risks and ensure that we can allow them to get the most out of the school environment. Lisa, do you have a follow-up? Yes, thank you. Going forward, the surveillance program will be relying on the sentinel to pick up the sickest people and the waste water which captures the lower mainland only, but in the interior and northern health cases remain to be raging. So wondering then, we're not going to be doing surveillance through PCR testing of anyone who has COVID symptoms. So I'm wondering what assurances you can get to British Columbians who might not be confident that you will be able to pick up early warning messages. So those are some of the things that we report, but there are many other surveillance streams that we watch on a daily basis and a weekly basis to help us understand what's going on in different communities around the province. So I've likened it in many ways to a puzzle where there's different pieces that come from different places. So if we see a signal in one thing, so waste water is up for one reason and then we have a university residence and we saw a spike and then we say, okay, what's happening, why do we see a spike in this? So there's a whole number of different places that we watch. So we look at outbreaks in long-term care, we look at what's happening in our hospitals, we have testing programs for workers in certain situations that we continue to do another. And PCR testing will continue. It will continue, we have testing centers, but that will transition as we would for any respiratory illness. So if you're sick enough to need medical care, test from your physician and that will tell whether it's, we have a multiplex, a ray testing that emergency departments, it's done in healthcare, in your physician's office, for example, that tests for influenza and RSV and COVID. So we have a lot of different ways to do that. So those are the things that we have in place for other respiratory illnesses that will continue to allow us to monitor in a systematic way what we're seeing for SARS CoV-2 as well. So I would encourage you to look at, for example, our influenza surveillance report that comes out weekly. Those are some of the measures that we will integrate COVID surveillance into. Next question comes from Cole Schisler, Black Press. Hi there, thanks for taking my question. You said that this will be an uncomfortable time for folks who are susceptible to severe outcomes to COVID. But for people at high risk, it's not a matter of comfort for them, it's a matter of life and death. With restrictions being lifted, what is in place to protect people at high risk and what will the problems do to support those people? Yeah, so we need to recognize that the things that are in place that are making it less risky for all of us are vaccination. And the fact that we've all been vaccinated for ourselves protects others too. So that's the really big one. And that's why we're in this place that we're in. We have that level of immunity. But we also know that people who are going through cancer treatments, people who have transplants, they have always had to take care of their illnesses and to other infectious diseases because they know their immune systems are not as strong. So we will continue to be able to provide them the support that they need. And this is what we're trying to say today, that it is important for us to all recognize that we don't know everybody's story. And there's a reason why somebody may be wearing a mask. There's a reason why somebody may be asking us about long-term care. Because those are things that help us support those people whose immune systems, no matter how many vaccines they have, are not going to be able to fully protect them and they may be more at risks. So it is about us all recognizing that those people are part of our social networks, part of our families, part of our workplaces, and that the measures that we're taking are respectful and supportive to make sure that we're not going to be in a situation where we're not going to be able to protect people. And so, yeah, with more people dropping the masks with the vaccine card requirement going away, hopefully COVID doesn't go back up. But if it does, are we going to see increased testing to detect long COVID in people? And is the province going to or does the province have a plan to step up supports the COVID-19 vaccines? We also know that some of the key measures that help prevent long COVID are vaccination. Your risk is dramatically decreased if you're immunized and you happen to have a breakthrough infection. So there's also many things we don't yet know about long-term effects of COVID. And some of them we're starting to learn about the effects on the brain, about the effects on other parts of our body. And those will continue. There will continue to be supports in place. We have, as you know, a clinic for clinics. And it's a hub and spoke model to support people getting assessed through their family physician or through the local community clinic. And they can get into that. But I think we also need to I'm not making a whole lot of sense, but yes, those are important considerations. Really important considerations. And globally we're trying to understand the longer-term impacts, some of which we won't know for years from now. I don't know if you want to add to that, yeah. Absolutely. I just add to this. And this is, you know, I think we've seen in recent weeks with the invasion of Ukraine. How issues and issues that have been occurring, how issues and terrible actions by people in this case, the Russian President, affect people all around the world. With respect to COVID-19, it's important to remember, and Dr. Henry has made this point repeatedly and survived, that we continue to have to work to vaccinate people throughout the world, around the world, in every part of the world. I mean, we have to learn from the COVID-19 pandemic and we have to learn from the COVID-19 pandemic. And surely a fundamental lesson of the COVID-19 pandemic in our modern world is that events that happen and viruses that emerge somewhere well across the world can affect us here. We refer to variants sometimes by the origin, where they were discovered. It's not where they started, but where they were discovered, such as the Omicron variant of South Africa, but we have an obligation as a world to not just fully vaccinate ourselves in BC, and we've got to continue to do that, and the effort continues to do that. And I think it's a very strong one here, and the fact that we're getting on to 94% of adults that are vaccinated is pretty impressive in BC, but we have to see that happen throughout the world, because that is part of the COVID-19. So it matters in BC that there is vaccination in South Africa, and it matters in BC that there's vaccination in all countries in the world, and we have to continue to support those measures at a national and international level to ensure that everyone has the right that everyone in BC has had to a free, available of vaccine that makes them safer. Just one other comment about, you know, from the very beginning, we know that there are balancing that we need to do, and we need to balance the measures that are put in place with the impacts that they can have sometimes positive, but also negative. So we are out of place where we're in the risk of COVID and mitigating it with measures that are less restrictive so that we can support people in the recovery from what we've been through in this last two years. So we know that there's been dramatic impacts on young people in schools, in post-secondary institutions, on anxiety, on mental health. And so finding this response is really important, ensuring that we can start focusing on getting back to some of the things that are really important around connecting, around being able to sing together without masks on in a safe environment, and doing that to support people to recover from what we've been through, as well as trying to minimize the transmission of COVID over the next little while. We have time for one more question today. We'll go to Bellpuree, CBC. Dr. Henry, you have repeatedly said that we can't let our guard down because who knows what's coming. So I'm wondering what work is being done right now while the case counts and transmissions are low to prepare for what might be coming in the fall, especially in our health care system and in the education, if we could get an answer in English and French, please. I've talked a little bit about how we need to manage this as one of the serious respiratory illnesses that's going to be with us and we're still in the place where we're learning about COVID and it's still changing. So we're not yet in that endemic state where we know what to expect. So part of what we're doing is focusing on surveillance and integrating it into the things that we do to monitor for other serious respiratory illnesses. We need to focus on the impact on our health care system, and I know the minister and Deputy Steve are going to talk about our health human resources. How do we make sure that we have the nurses and physicians and have recovered from this pandemic enough to support what we've learned? We've learned about the importance of these. We've learned at the importance of different tools. We've learned about the importance of ventilation in buildings, both in work places, in health care, in schools. So those are things that we need to focus on. How we have better access to testing, better tests, better vaccines, better treatments. So those are all things that we need to focus on and we need to look at as well. How do we support behaviors? We've learned things about what it means to wear masks in certain settings and how some people react to that and what some of the downside impacts are. So how do we make that behavior supportive and supportive for people to protect themselves as we go into another piece of uncertainty? The other thing I think is really important is some of the things we've learned about how to support workers in long-term care and our long-term care sector that was so fragmented and didn't have the single-site order. So how do we transition that into a supportive, positive working environment for people in long-term care? How do we do that? How do we do this around sick leave and how that is such an important tool to allow people to take those measures to stay away from others if they're sick themselves. So I think there's lots of things that we need to think about, about what we've learned from this pandemic to take us through next year. And the other thing I'm very passionate about is this pandemic has exposed some of the things that we've learned from the pandemic that we've been addressing, some of those. And just say in English, one of the reasons when we first delayed surgeries in the spring of 2020, in that time in the middle of March through to the end of May, we made a commitment to catch up and we did more than 99% of those surgeries that were delayed completed and we ended up in the calendar year that followed it, doing more surgeries and that caused, consumed time. The precautions that are required for COVID-19 actually made surgeries longer. We did it by adding hours at the end of days. We did it by adding surgeries on weekends. We did it by 81 measures that were taken across health authorities to increase the number of surgeries and to reduce weight time such that there are fewer people waiting for surgeries today than there were at the beginning of the pandemic. We have the doctors and nurses, health sciences professionals, health care workers we need. Lots of the measures we have taken in the pandemic have had an impact on that, the wage level and component of the single site initiative for example, the age cap program that has brought thousands of new workers to long-term care. The steps we are taking to expand nursing spaces, all of the steps we are taking, the steps we continue to do to make it easier for people to use the EMBC and to use their skills to the full extent of their ability. All of these things are important. The final thing I wanted to note is that prior to the pandemic we had seen a decline in overdose deaths in our public health emergency that is the overdose crisis that has so focused our efforts for the last now more than five years. That continues to be a challenge. We come through the pandemic and some of the things we are doing, including the fact that people were spending more time alone impacted the outcomes of overdoses and led to overdose deaths. And so we have continuing obligation as a health care system and as a society to address both public health emergencies. It continues today. It doesn't stop. We need to be relentless and we will be. I will say it in the parenthesis. I will say it in the parenthesis. I do. I have to remind the minister to answer the first question in French when he comes up again. In the meantime, Dr. Henry, when you talked about changes to visitation rules and long-term care, you suggested that it won't be immediate. Can you give people who really want to get in there to see their family members a timeline of when they can expect all facilities to come into compliance with the updated rules? So we've been talking with the sector over the last couple of days around this. So it will be by next Friday. So we're giving a week. Some people will be, some facilities will be ready tomorrow. Others it may take a little bit longer to ramp up their ability to cope with larger numbers of visitors coming in. But the expectation is that it will be by next Friday, the 18th. Yes, for the second question, the visitation of long-term care centers, you will be the next Friday. It can be that some facilities are measured before and that's desirable. I think it's important that people have the opportunity as soon as possible to visit people. We have a system of visitors designated for the visitation. We have a system of visitors designated for the visitation. We have a system of visitors designated actually. And adding to that, the visitor is important. And it is still going to continue the measures to ensure that everyone who visits is vaccinated. And it will continue as well as the rapid tests that will give all the visitors all of our facilities. We can go all the way into the province. For the first question, I would like to say that we have a system of visitors designated for the visitation. For the first question, I would like to say that there are a lot of things to do to support our workers in the province. We have a number of English-speaking people, but I would like to say that surgery is essential. We have a number of surgeries multiple times during the pandemic. And each time we have done that, we have all received the surgery. It will continue. Half of it has already been received. We have a fifth and fourth wave. And we are going to compete with the others and continue to improve our capacity to do the surgery. Because there is less people on our list than before the pandemic. What is remarkable and what demands the effort of everyone in our health system. I am proud of the work of our workers, professionals in the health system. With that, I want to thank you for your time today. We will see you soon. Take care.