 Thank you very much. My name is Adrian Dix and I'm the BC's Minister of Health. To my right is Dr Bonnie Henry, BC's provincial health officer. This is our COVID-19 update for today, Friday, December 17th. We're honored to be here on the territory of the Lekwungen speaking people of the Songhees and the Esquimalt First Nations. Dr Henry is going to speak and describe the changes to provincial health orders that are coming as of Sunday at 11.59 p.m. And then I'll say a few words and then we'll be happy to take your question. So with that, I'd like to introduce Dr Bonnie Henry. Thank you very much and good afternoon. As we have all seen in recent weeks, the newest variant, the Omicron variant of concern, is adding new and more complex challenges to our pandemic. And we are no exception here in British Columbia. Omicron is rapidly replacing the other variants here in BC, primarily Delta, the several different strains of Delta that have been causing infections around our province. And as we have noted, has rapidly started causing a rapid increase in the number of new cases of COVID-19 that were seen, particularly in Vancouver Coastal and the Fraser Health region and here in Vancouver Island. It is moving quickly, and so much we can do. And so must we. This is of course not where we want to be. We were making good progress. We had turned the corner of the wave that we've been dealing with for the last few months here in BC, but it is the reality of where we are. And right now, we need to slow the spread and ensure that our health care system and our communities are protected. We will see more cases. We have known now globally that this Omicron strain is replacing Delta around the world. It is more transmissible, which means that it can spread with even a smaller amount of virus. It is spreading more rapidly than before, and we need to flatten that curve. If we see rapid increases in cases, we know that a certain proportion of those people will need hospital care. Right now, most of the cases that we're seeing are in younger people, that are more connected, so it's spreading very rapidly, but they're not having severe illness. It's mostly mild illness, and that is for a couple of reasons. One, because people are younger right now, and also because we have very high vaccination rates, and that is reflected in the people who are getting infected right now, where we have not had hospitalizations in people in the community who have had Omicron that we're seeing around the world, and we're not going to be an exception to that. We will see rapidly rising cases over the next few weeks, and we need to take additional measures to slow that down so that we don't overwhelm our hospital system. One of the things that we also know is that if you are not yet vaccinated, if you do not have that protection that vaccination gives, this virus is spreading, and more and more people are at risk. Now is the time to get vaccinated. This virus will find you. We need to get vaccinated as soon as possible. Without a vaccine, you are at higher risk of serious illness and hospitalization. We know now with this strain that even if you are fully vaccinated, you can get infected, but it is a milder illness for most of those people. So we need to put in new measures in place for everyone. These are revisions to the orders that are in place now and will be in place starting on midnight on Sunday, so we'll start on Monday morning and extend through to January 31, 2022. These amendments are about ensuring everyone is staying small, staying with the people they know, and with people who are vaccinated. Firstly, the events and gatherings order will be amended so to include all indoor personal gatherings, including at rentals, vacation properties, resorts, are limited to your household or the residents, plus no more than 10 additional individuals. Or one other household. And this is if everybody is vaccinated. If you are unvaccinated or have members of your family who are unvaccinated, we cannot have personal gatherings in those settings right now. For events on our BC vaccine card, proof of vaccine with the BC vaccine card is required no matter the size of events. It no longer starts with events including 50 or more people, which has been the case for the last few months. In addition, we need to step up our scanning of the QR code. We know that that is the best way to ensure that these are valid QR codes and they must be checked at all times. Venues with a capacity of 1,000 or more people will be limited to 50% capacity, whether that is concert, hockey game, theater, if the capacity is more than 1,000, then we are reducing that by 50% capacity. And that is to ensure that we have additional space for people. These are events that have been managed very well and we are not seeing a lot of transmission, but we are seeing a lot of transmission and we need to have more space, more ventilation and we need to ensure that we are enforcing the mask wearing requirements that are in place for these events and ensuring that we are scanning QR codes for these events. All sports tournaments that are both for youth and adults are suspended for the period of this order. We have seen that when you have teams coming from many different places, coming together over a period of days, those are events where we can see spread of this virus and then taking it back to different communities. I know there are a number of tournaments, particularly hockey tournaments around the province that were due to start on Boxing Day, those will need to be suspended and postponed for the period of time of this order. We have seen a lot of events that have been suspended in one and a limited time frame. Finally, under the events and gatherings, all New Year's Eve parties will be suspended no matter their size. We can still have restaurants can continue to operate at full capacity and can have New Year's Eve meals, but we also have some amendments to the food and liquor services order that will come into place at the table and masks must be worn when not seated. This goes back to where we took us through the last few waves of this virus, of this pandemic, where you go with your group of people to the restaurant, you stay at the table together, there is no mingling and standing and mixing of tables and this will apply for New Year's Eve as well. Restaurants can have a special New Year's Eve dinner and we are asking you to put in place COVID safety plans for holiday and boxing day sales. We do encourage people to shop locally and to support your local businesses and we want to make sure that they are not going to have a lot of trouble with the restaurants and restaurants. We are asking you to put in place COVID safety plans for holiday and boxing day sales. We do encourage people to shop locally and to support your local businesses and to make sure that that can be done safely during this period of increased risk of transmission. What we want to do right now is limit those holiday gatherings to be only with our family and close friends and I know how important it is for us to spend time with people. We have been through a lot in this province and we need to be with family and friends over this year. I know that it is a good morning to the earthquake at 414 as I did. Sometimes it can be challenging to think, are we going to make it through this year? We are. We know what we need to do and we have been here before. We know we can slow the spread. We know there are many things that we can still do to support each other and to get through this. We can do that in the safest way possible. We can still socialize and spend time with others, but do it in a way that doesn't increase risk. So if you have friends or family members who are unvaccinated, have one-on-one meetings with them or gatherings with them, or do it outside, go for a walk. By doing this now, we will be able to keep other important aspects of our community going and with these efforts, we know that it supports our schools coming back, post-secondary institutions remaining open, and of course, supporting as much as we can, our businesses and communities functioning. We will be closely monitoring of course the situation and we will make changes as we need to. That is something we have had to do. When we have plans and we have, we look at the situation that we are dealing with on a day-by-day basis and we need to adjust and change when the situation changes. And this new variant has put us in that situation again. I recognize that this unrelenting uncertainty and this evolving situation is very unsettling for many people. And it can cause a lot of anxiety, depression, and discouragement. I want to say that we can get through this. And it is so important right now that we continue to support and care for each other. The days are dark right now, but soon the winter solstice will be coming and the days will get longer once again. And we will be turning ever so slowly back towards the light. Let's take encouragement from this. If you are feeling overwhelmed, anxious, or unable to cope, we have resources to support you. I talked about this a few weeks ago. I encourage people to call 811, visit bounce back BC. The kids help phone line is toll-free 24-hour phone counseling. And you can call 1-800-668-6868 if you need that support. Let's do our part to help slow this virus down. Keep our groups small. Let's ensure everyone in our family is vaccinated so that we have the best protection possible. And support our friends, neighbors, and communities. While there are restrictions in place, there is so much that we can do now because we have those tools in place. We can continue to enjoy each other's company, the warmth, kindness, and compassion of this holiday season. And that doesn't need to pause. So I ask everyone, please, continue to take all of the things that we know work to help keep us all safe and protected, and continue to be kind, to be calm, and to be safe. Thank you. Thank you very much, Dr. Henry. I wanted to start by expressing my appreciation to people in BC who have done so much together to help one another deal with the COVID-19 pandemic to thank our incredible teams of health care workers, and more than 1,400 people who are working on contact tracing, which is not just a task of limiting the spread and finding out information, but supporting people in challenging times. BC, as you know, there are some provinces that don't really do much, or any contact tracing, BC continues to be focused on them. I thank them. All the people involved in our immunization campaigns and acute care hospitals and community care and community care hospitals, and we have made a difference in challenging times. We have all made a difference, I think, by getting vaccinated, by getting our boosters when it's our term, by making sure our children age 5 to 11 are protected by the vaccine, by following public health orders, by hearing to public health guidance, by using our COVID strength, and always, always, we are moved with conviction, compassion and understanding in adapting consistently to a vicious virus that is not easy, not for any of us. But almost two years ago, we committed together, I think, to fight, and we have done that every step of the way, and to have done so in such a way that supports one another, as communities, as regions in the province, and as people. I want to note that as our pandemic experience has shown from the beginning, COVID-19 always has its own plans. Obviously, many of us, many of us who were called last year with limits on COVID gatherings, were unable to come together fully as families, had our own plans for these holiday seasons. But as it's shown, COVID-19 has its own plans. COVID's Omicron variant is highly transmissible, and each of us knows that with rising case counts around the globe, across Canada and here in BC, we are once again called to act. And I want to note, as you know with Scotia now, it's highest case count for COVID-19 ever. Quebec did the same. The Omicron variant of concern is now the dominant variant of concern in the province of Ontario. And then around the world, we saw, as you know, more than 87,000 cases announced today in the United Kingdom. More than 10 times our rate of transmission in BC, and if you can imagine what the struggle of people in that country are facing. And I want to remind everyone and say that the measures taken today, and being taken by Dr Henry today and put in place and starting at midnight on Monday or 11.59 on Sunday night, are important steps that will help us slow the transmission of COVID-19 in a time that's challenging for everyone. Here in BC, for example, we see a growing share of our cases and we know even if we may be a week behind some jurisdiction in Canada, we know that the Omicron variant will soon be the dominant variant of concern in BC. So we have to continue to do the things that we are doing together to stop the spread and to follow the new guidance and the new provincial health orders that have been put in place. I want to finally express my appreciation to all the people who are doing immunization around the province and note that the week of November 27th to December 3rd, we have a number of vaccines administered in BC. The week of December 4th to the 10th, it was 157,382. The week of December 11th to 17th, it was 182,805. We are ramping up those vaccinations across British Columbia and those include 84,491 first doses for children of 5 to 11. And a growing number of seniors and others in BC, 63% of all those over 70, almost 50% of those over 65, 130,000 clinically extremely vulnerable British Columbians, tens of thousands between 40 and 50,000 health care workers. A very significant number of indigenous communities. The same kinds of priorities we put on dose one and two have been put in dose three have been vaccinated so far and those efforts continue and they will continue across BC. This is particularly true with growing vaccinations in the northern health authority. It has seen its vaccinations in combination with the first nation health authority in communities across northern BC increased significantly in the last number of weeks. I want to encourage people in northern BC if they are eligible to be vaccinated to book appointments. There are currently 1,800 pharmacy appointments currently posted across northern health authority. Only 450 bookings have been made for the next two weeks and I believe moved to fill those up in this next period and again, advance our immunization effort as well. Efforts are going to be made, every effort is going to be made to ensure that there are many opportunities through this Christmas period to get vaccinated in every part of BC and that work is being done now. I think we need to continue those efforts, follow the public health orders and continue to do the work we need to do together to address this issue. I just say this, that, you know, the COVID-19 vaccine pandemic is tested us all. And what it requires now is for us to be cautious in our actions, be prudent in our actions, protect one another with what we do and support these efforts of public health which reflect, I think, the best advice we can give to British Columbians and where it's not advice, the direction and orders that we can provide to give people the best protection possible in challenging times. This is going to be a very difficult three weeks and we can deal with that in a number of ways, but I think what we need to do together is continue to make the best efforts we can across British Columbians supporting one another and supporting public health and working together to address and support each other in difficult times. Do it for our families, for our loved ones, for those we love and know and those that we don't know. And if we can do that together, we can achieve a great deal in dealing with this difficult challenge of the Omicron variant of concern. Thank you very much. We're happy to take your questions. A reminder to reporters on the line, please press star one to enter the queue. You'll be limited to one question and one follow-up. For our first question, we start here in the room with Richard Zussman who is a member of the Household . They can invite over 10 other people or another household. How does this work with families that may have one other family of four plus two others? That's less than 10. I'm just not sure how people are supposed to do this. And the other piece of this is how are you possibly going to enforce unvaccinated people not being able to go to social gatherings? How can unvaccinated people not follow along with provincial guidelines from the beginning? What I'm hearing very clearly from people is they want direction about how to do this in the best way that we can. And we recognize that people have to get together. And yes, so the number 10 is about having a manageable group and making sure that people are vaccinated. And this is to support people to have those conversations. I have those conversations with people who, and I know I hear a lot about how do I ask people about this? So it is keeping those groups small. It's about having those conversations about vaccination, having them ahead of time. Saying I'm having people over on this state for vaccinated people only, can you come? That's one way of having that conversation without putting people on the spot. But I think people want clear about what the limits are. So we say another household because sometimes we have very large households, and if you want to come together with two large households, then that's enough. Don't have additional people. But the answer really is to look at your own risk and to keep things as small as reasonably possible. But a limit of 10 is one that will reduce or mitigate the impacts if somebody is happened to be carrying the virus. It can be fewer than that. So spend time with people that you want to spend time with or that you need to spend time with right now. Keep it as small as possible. Look at your own risks and look at the risks of the group of people that you're with. If you have people who are undergoing cancer therapy or immune suppression, keep it smaller than that. And make sure that you have good ventilation, that you're in good health. You mentioned anxiety. There has been a lot of anxiety created around the issue of booster shots and around the issue of rapid testing. There's nothing here announcing that those things are speeding ahead. I understand that boosters we continue to be ahead of the curve in some regards, but so many other jurisdictions are shrinking that gap between second and third doses to fewer than six months. Why are we not announcing today that rapid tests will be available to British Columbians like almost every other province? What is taking us time to get to that point? So there's a couple of things. I'll talk about the booster program in a bit more detail. And in terms of the rapid testing, we are working on that. We are in a situation where we have certain types of tests. We're working on how to make them more available. We're working on that in more detail on Tuesday. I can't tell you things that are not yet worked out. So more to come on that for sure. And booster, I think we need to be careful about fixating on one thing or another thing as being unanswered. They are part of the answer and there is an important role for rapid testing. And we are changing our focus on that and we'll have more to say on that. So we are working on the booster program based on thinking that we've been doing around immunology, around looking at the data that we have from BC, from Canada, and globally, around how our immune system works. And we know, and we went very early on, as you know, to increase the interval between dose one and dose two. Because we know that gives the immune system longer, better time to be able to mature and mediate immunity. And that's been proven, it's been borne out both in the vaccine effectiveness studies and in other studies that show that the longer the interval between dose one and dose two and sort of the optimal is probably at least eight weeks that you get a stronger, longer lasting immune response. So one of the things that's different about BC is we went to that extended interval early. Which means that most people in BC will be able to do that in June, July, and the first week of August. The second part is we also know that, and Nassie has come out with this as well, looking at information about different programs around the world and the programs here in Canada, that extending the interval between dose two and a booster dose also gives your immune system time to develop a stronger, longer lasting response. And that is focused on the data that we have that showed we were starting to see more serious infections in breakthrough in older people. So hospitalizations in older people who have been vaccinated and of course, infections and outbreaks in long-term care. We know from all of the work on immunology that our antibody levels decrease over time, and that's antibodies are a protein in the blood and it's a protein in the blood. So we know that those go down over time. And what that means is that you may have less protection against that immediate response and that can lead to infection, especially with a more highly infectious variant, so a smaller amount of virus can cause an infection. But what we don't know and what we're learning about is how strong that cell-mediated virus is, and even against Omicron, but we don't know all of the details about that yet. So preserving that interval between dose two and a booster dose gives us stronger, better protection for longer. And it will get us through not just this variant and what's happening right now, but also the next variant. We're going to be living with this virus for a long time. So we want to give the best protection, the longest lasting protection. Initially we had been looking at the data and expecting for younger people, we'd be able to extend that interval to about eight months, because that's probably giving stronger, longer lasting protection for a longer period of time. But we've now moved it up and we're focusing on ramping up our immunization program so that we can get most people at about those people at higher risk who didn't have a strong immune response, but for most of us it's going to be six months after your dose two, and that's what we're goal is now, that's what we're ramping up for, and for most people that means in the next few weeks you'll be getting your invitations and we'll be getting booster doses into people. And just to add to that, Richard, I can't comment what people announced about the vaccine, but as I said in my presentation two weeks ago, 131,140, this week 182,805, that's ramping up, not on paper, not in press releases, not in announcements, but where it matters in immunization clinics across BC, how have we done this? By adding community pharmacy, I want to thank the BC Pharmacy Association for this, I talked about the availability of appointments in different provinces, but boosting them, so we've gone from 200, which we're largely in our pilot project as we built it out, to 500 this week, to 1,000, this is a significant increase in capacity to deliver on that. I don't believe other provinces of them we've done, which is to focus on the clinically extremely vulnerable, and well over 100,000 people who have got their vaccinations, and this will be worth its weight in gold for those who are in the healthcare system and everyone in BC who I know would support people who are living with cancer and people who are living with significant immune suppressing disease and challenges, that they get their vaccine doses sooner, and we've done that in BC. We are setting the priority in the same medically based science-based approach, guided by public health as we've consistently done, and you see those ramping up, and I think people can be proud of this effort on the ground, and I'm proud of British Columbians, because they're getting vaccinated at a very high rate, 92% of all those over 12, and we're seeing the growth in our effort for children 5 to 11. So this is a very significant campaign, and I want to also say that finally, that the challenges on our healthcare workers and our healthcare systems are real, we decided and we believe in BC in the importance of the long-term care and long-term care and assisted living, that have reduced the number of outbreaks from in the 20s of the beginning of November to 0 in long-term care and assisted living as of yesterday, that is the number of cases that we've had since the beginning of the pandemic, it's important to help people in challenging times, that isn't the case in other jurisdictions, we have a long-term care and assisted living as of yesterday, that doesn't mean it will stay at zero, but that's important place to start as we deal with these new challenges, and these aren't things that the government has done, these are things that British Columbians have done, British Columbia healthcare workers have done, and British Columbia citizens have done, and we should acknowledge those strengths and improve areas where we can do better. I feel that the risk of gathering in private settings with one other fully vaccinated household is the same risk of gathering in clubs with maybe 100 people, when we know that aerosol can be spread that way, and you yourself mentioned ensuring better ventilation, maybe we'll have a bit of a disconnect between those two. So you know that in clubs we have limitations on what activities can happen in those settings, so people need to be at a table now, particularly we were allowing people to move around, the BC vaccine card is in effect, so everybody must be vaccinated in those settings, and now you must stay at your table as well. So, yes, it's a balancing of risks in trying to keep the things open that we can with those measures in place. The other piece, of course, is mask wearing, and so in our indoor social services, we have a lot of restrictions, but those are important when you're moving around within a restaurant, a bar or a club, and I know many of the clubs have not opened, because we have had that prohibition on things like dancing and other higher risk activities within those settings. Lisa, do you have a follow-up? Yes, do you have any data or any modeling to compare what the rate of transmission would be if you do not impose any further restrictions versus the rate that we might see with these restrictions in place? Yes, so the short answer is not yet. As you know, it takes a bit of time before we are seeing the numbers that help us understand that, so the modeling that we showed, particularly things like the reproductive number, was still based on mostly transmission of delta variants, although we were starting to see the increase in omicron, and as you know, that was creeping up above one, and I believe that's the influence of omicron particularly, as I mentioned on Tuesday in Vancouver Coastal, where we started to see that really curve up very rapidly, so we will be looking at that as we are analyzing the data going forward, but there's a bit of a delay in that, but the whole genome sequencing takes several days, so we are rating that yesterday, we reported up to 135, I believe it was, or 37 cases confirmed by whole genome sequencing, and that process will be updated later today, I believe there's a bit of a delay and we're still trying to work out that process, but it's increasing in numbers and in numbers, and that's one of the challenges we're facing with this new variant around the world, as it takes time before you know when you can look back and look at what are we seeing, but we know from Ontario where there are a bit ahead of us, from the UK that the reproductive number when it's introduced into the population is higher than what we were seeing with delta over the last few weeks. Minister Dix, you mentioned contact tracing, I remember back in the spring I guess last winter, but it was that contact tracing and Fraser Health for example could handle about 600 cases and then they were overwhelmed. Now fewer cases at this point, but increasing and the number of contacts or number of people at risk is increasing, so how long will it be before the contact tracing in place is overwhelmed, or will it withstand this? I've talked with my colleagues about this, these are things that we talk about a lot about public health practice and what we will be doing and we saw this in the north with a much smaller number because we have fewer resources to be able to do that, so what we are working on and what we will be doing is prioritizing where we need to make sure that we are doing active contact management and clearly high risk settings like somebody who is a health care worker, somebody who is in long-term care in some of the congregate living settings. But then for people who are having milder illness, vaccinated younger people, being able to self-manage and notify their own contacts and we will be supporting them in doing that and we have had to do that in some ways in the north, in the interior over periods of surges, so we are focusing on how we do that in a systematic way should we get to that point in the next little while. And I will also say that that same pool of people is doing many things. The case in contact management teams being led by mostly public health people with others working with us were also people who do immunization, also the people who are working on the data collection and outbreak management, so it is not like we have teams that are able to do many, many things, so what we were doing is titrating up as we had our big bolus of second doses in the summer and then as cases rose, many people were moved over to support the contact tracing and case management. So we are actively looking at how we can manage that and testing, that was the other piece. We do the testing centres as well. And we are also looking at how we can be able to see more cases. So the measures that we are putting in place today are to try and address some of those things. What we are seeing is rapid spread in large groups, large parties where you, Vic, unfortunately is a good example where there is large host parties with large numbers of people and this strain is spreading very rapidly in those groups. And we are also looking at how we can manage that and we are also looking at what we are doing today and what we are doing today is reducing the probability of having those larger gatherings and bigger spread. And just on the numbers we have more people on our contact tracing teams now than any other time in the pandemic, but you will see the number of active cases now in BC of COVID-19. We had, as you watch the numbers closely, probably we could go 28, 2900 cases so that is a significant increase and that is going to keep going up. And so we have got a strong team and a strong network in place but there is a point at which you have to assign the work amongst people and as Dr Henry said it is the same teams of health workers that do immunization, other work in public health and other parts of the health care system as well. So that is the challenge we face but that emphasis on contact tracing we have the strongest teams in the country but as cases grow we will have to adjust our strategies to deal with a growing number of cases and we have seen that in the last week and we absolutely expect to see that in the 350, 360 range, 7 day rolling average at the beginning of this week in the 300s anyway to the case numbers we have seen low 500s, high 500s yesterday, 759. And so you have seen that increase is going to grow and that is going to mean active cases are going to grow because that is a significant increase over a period of weeks ago and we are going to see those active cases growing up and that is going to increase and we will have to adjust our tactics to deal with that but we have a strong team in place and that has always been an emphasis in BC and I will continue to be emphasis even if some of our strategies change. Do you have a follow-up? I do and I think all of that is why people are so frustrated they don't have their hands on rapid tests right now and going on because even if you are vaccinated you are going to get this. I don't know how I am going to prevent this and I heard university students tell me they are terrified going to exams now because although they are wearing masks and people are supposed to be vaccinated and people are showing up sick so why not put even more stringent things on and protect these large gatherings at schools and we are working on that and you know today is the last day of school for K-12 we know that cases have been very low at post-secondary institutions and we have not had transmission in classroom settings for example or lab settings in post-secondary institutions. It has been almost exclusively in those social events off campus mostly where there is not mask wearing where people are coming together. We have been supporting and working really closely with post-secondary institutions around this and we have had a very successful return to campus across the province in BC and I think kudos go to the staff and the students in post-secondary institutions. The vaccination rates in our universities and colleges in BC are in the high 90s. I know in UVic it was 97, 98%. And that is reflected in the fact that even though this spread very widely in the group of students in the social gatherings, they did not have anybody with severe disease yet. So that is good news. I think we need to put this into a context. Yes, there is a lot of concern and part of the concern is that there are just so many unknowns and we have seen this happening around the world and you know, we had enough things in place that we wouldn't be seeing it replace delta that we have been dealing with really successfully over the last few months. But the reality is that it has. So I think what we need to focus on is knowing what we need to do. Taking a deep breath, knowing that, yes, it can spread and it can spread in those social connections particularly, that we need to use our layers of protection. It is huge protection for us and we know especially young people that we get very strong immune responses from the vaccines that we have and that is going to help us and for most people it is a relatively mild illness if you are vaccinated. But if you are not, if you don't have that layer of protection, you are really at risk right now so you need to really think again about protecting yourself because the online Europe is the very best way to protect yourself. Thank you. Hello. Hello. Hello. Yes. The busy government they will follow the Ontario government because they have recommended they are employees who are from home, how about busy government? Do you welcome them as well? Yes. The public service agency has a vaccine mandate across the There was a return to work plan for early January and that's been extended at least for the period of time of these orders. So, yes, that is what the public service is doing here in British Columbia. And our recommendations advice to other organizations is to consider continuing your work from home if that's possible as well. Justine, do you have a follow-up? Yes. We want to know about after the COVID-19 pandemic, what are the new year holidays, the school campus will be closed again? I'm sorry, will school be closed again? Yes, the university. The university is for post-secondary institutions? Our expectation right now, given what we know right now, is that we will be able to safely go back to in-classroom learning. And I know many post-secondary institutions, I was mentioning this earlier, but I know that there are a lot of people who are not able to go back to school, and I'm mentioning this are really taking the best of some of the remote learning and doing some hybrid, particularly to be able to support students and staff if they get sick and need to be out of the classroom for a period of time. So, the measures that we have in place in post-secondary institutions have been working really well. Of course, things are changing. So, we will be watching this carefully over the next few weeks. We have a group that meets regularly with post-secondary institutions to make sure that we have the right measures in place. And we will be reviewing those before we return to campus. But I am confident that we can continue to support our young people who have been so differentially affected by this pandemic. And we know how hard it was for so many young people with the completely remote learning last year. And it is important. We know that it's a time when people are developing emotionally and socially and finding ideas and sharing ideas with new people. And part of that needs to happen in an environment that is on campus. Next question. Rob Buffam, CTV, Vancouver Island. Hi, thanks for taking my question. I'm wondering about, for parents of younger kids, going to have high school or elementary school who are anxious about the return to school in a couple of weeks, we're expecting a surge in cases. What can you tell those parents in terms of the likelihood that their kids will be back to class in person? We also have had a really strong focus on safe return to school. And that has been also really successful. I think right now focusing on getting the younger kids vaccinated, the 12 to 17 and have not yet received your vaccinations, that's important too. And the measures that we've been putting in place have been working. So we need to focus on that. And our school team is also meeting regularly and we'll be looking at how do we ensure that we have everything in place that's needed for a safe return to school in two weeks. And today being the last day for K-12 here in BC. As you know, the hospitality industry was very upset last New Year's Eve when at the 11th hour there were significant restrictions brought in. You've brought in some restrictions today, acknowledging that there is going to be a surge in cases. How confident are you that we're not going to see more restrictions, things like capacity limits at restaurants or things of that nature in the next several weeks? So we've been looking and I've been working with my colleagues about where we're seeing the COVID-19 situation in Vancouver and it really is those social interactions in those settings where we're not wearing masks when we're talking and being together and whether it's a party at a restaurant. So we know and we've seen this throughout this pandemic that restaurants can safely function when we have some of these COVID safety measures in place. So that's why we've made the measures that you have to stay at your table with your group, and we've made it. And I met with industry representatives this morning and we talked through these things. These are the measures that I'm confident will help us to continue safely operate. Clearly if the situation gets dramatically worse, then we'll meet again and reassess what we need to do. But I believe that if we all dig in and stay small and continue to take these measures that got us through before, they'll get us back to you in a minute. So I'm going to go ahead and answer one more question. We'll go to Ethan Sawyer, CBC. Hi there. Thanks for taking my question. And as per usual, hoping to get an answer in French as well. First off, just wondering how does today's announcement affect private events such as weddings and funerals? Will there be communication or guidance around things like seating? And will host be expected to be. Right now, there are still limits on things like dancing, etc. So they remain seated events. There's no capacity limits. But all of them, no matter what the size, must use the BC vaccine card to check that everybody there is vaccinated. So that's the difference. It used to be only if the event was over 50 people. Now it's regardless of the size of the event. So if you have a smaller wedding, you can continue to have that wedding, but it can only be vaccinated people at that wedding reception. Same for funerals that are the funeral reception or the celebration of life is the event part of it. Ethan, do you have a follow-up? I do. This one is for Minister Dix. You said there are 1800 pharmacy appointments in northern BC with only 450 booked in the next two months. There are 1,350 unbooked pharmacy appointments available and if so, why are you not inviting more people to register for their booster dose rather than let those go unused? We have heard directly from multiple people in northern BC who are past the six months, including some who are over 65 who have yet to be invited to book their booster shot and if we can do that, we can do it. I am not sure if I mentioned that specifically, but you will recall about two weeks ago we put in place some additional measures to support safe operation of faith gatherings over the holiday season and that means the mask mandate was expanded to include faith gatherings and the capacity limits if they include unvaccinated people at 50% so that there is an opportunity for increased space. The sense of where we are at in the north, we significantly increased in the last couple of weeks immunizations across the north. Of course, all of long-term care, assisted living, independent living, long-term home support, short interval healthcare workers and acute care health workers have been completed. Clinically extremely vulnerable have been offered a dose. 35,298 northerners have received their third or booster dose and this is the point I made as we sent out, of course, we are sending out lots of invitations to book across BC that there are opportunities available. We are creating new capacity and there is the possibility right now to book appointments. We are going to continue to manage the system. I think the overall effort of managing the system led by Dr. Penny Ballum has been excellent. We are going to continue to manage the system. Dr. Penny Ballum has been excellent to date. We are obviously working and there are appointments available in communities across the north. We are adding new places where people can be vaccinated and we are working hard to ensure that there has been some discussion about vaccine clinics that are going to take periods off and stat holidays off and so on. All of these working hard to see we have a maximum capacity of the booster dose system and we manage invitations to ensure that we use those vaccination appointments. That is what is happening. I think the vaccination in pharmacies is a bit new and people are adjusting to it. What I am telling people is there are some opportunities. For those of you who received your invitation to book to get booked, basically we are a very similar number. You have to look back. Six months we are meeting people across BC who have received their third or booster dose. We will continue to do that. I think northern health is doing a very good job under difficult conditions. You will recall that 153 people, that number has slowed a little bit, have been transferred out of critical care in the north. That is an example of how challenging it is in the northern health authority. Currently we have added resources from other health authorities, so people from northern health, vaccination efforts. That has been managed very effectively through immunization BC to balance those things off. What can I say, we are making progress. Those are the numbers that we have in terms of both five to 11 clinics where there is availability right now. And also pharmacy appointments available across the north and we will look to expand those as people fill those spots. I am saying those spots are available. I am saying that in the region of northern health or British Columbia, we have made great progress in vaccination, especially in the communities such as Fort St. John and Dawson Creek. We have added people who have been vaccinated for the first time and for the second time. We have opened a lot of new vaccination places in our community. There are a lot of new places in our community. We have opened a lot of new places in our community. There are our many programs available for people to be vaccinated. What I am saying about that, we have the option to be vaccinated. We have opened many places in our population and we are going to see if it is necessary and that we can attend to some COVID-19 jedi продолжés. I think nor do we have many positive Max NARRATOR thanks. We are going to continue to . As I noted in my presentation, we have significantly, we have about 152,000 people registered or children registered 5 to 11 for the COVID-19 vaccine out of the 349,000 who are eligible to do so. We need that number to grow because the number of people of children vaccinated is growing and growing every day is not more than half of that number and is moving towards that number. So we need and this is a good occasion to get registered and certainly in the north especially to take advantage of appointments that will be very much. Thank you very much and I will see you and Dr Henry will see you next Tuesday.