As part of a Friday morning press conference Dr. Bonnie Henry and Health Minister Adrian Dix made note of the path that remains ahead for residents of the province, particularly as variants of COVID continue to be reported across BC
All COVID-19 public health orders and restrictions in BC have been extended. We continue to see high transmission rates through social gatherings. These restrictions mean all British Columbians must socialize only with people who live in their households (or core bubble, if you live alone). Everyone must continue to avoid any non-essential travel.
Lifting current restrictions will be based on many factors, including number of people immunized and level of community immunity, number of COVID-19 cases in the province and health care system capacity. Provincial Health Officer (PHO) orders and guidelines remain in place for everyone, regardless if they have received the vaccine.
The press conference which lasted just over an hour and half covered a range of themes, with some hopeful thoughts that the recent success in reducing the curve of new case reports will continue.
Though they were framed by concerns over the increase of variants of the virus and the uncertainty of the supply of vaccines to assist in the provincial vaccination program.
The data update included the cumulative case review from January 2020 to January 21 which provided some notes of interest for the Northwest, with Prince Rupert running in the middle of the listings with a total of 80 reported cases of COVID in the one year review period.
A large number of those cases have come from the recent outbreaks at SD52 and at the Acropolis Manor Long Term Care facility in the last three weeks.
By region of the Northwest, the results are as follows:
Terrace -- 427 cases
Nechako -- 246 cases
Smithers -- 205 cases
Burns Lake -- 157 cases
Nisga'a -- 132 cases
Bella Coola Valley -- 88 cases
Prince Rupert -- 80 cases
Kitimat -- 79 cases
Upper Skeena -- 54 cases
Haida Gwaii -- 39 cases
Snow Country, Stikine- Telegraph Creek -- 8 cases
Central Coast -- 8 cases
When it comes to transmission of the virus, as part of her roll out of data today, Doctor Henry observed as to how the level of positive cases is still quite concerning in the Northern region which reflects transmission in several communities, which remains high, but is showing signs of starting to come down.
Towards a time when the province may begin to reduce the restrictions and return to a sense of some normalcy of pre COVID times, Dr. Henry noted that there is no end time for the restrictions in mind just yet; though she offered up some hope towards a slow process of increasing the ability to enjoy more social gatherings which could be examined at the end of this month.
"What I'm saying is, we're in a place of more uncertainty and that we need to buy some time to understand if the positive things that we are seeing, are going allow us to take away some of the restrictions we have in place now and be able to do that safely.
So, we don't yet know what that is and that's why I'm leaving it open ended, Im not putting an end to the orders that are in place now; but I will be continuously reviewing the data that we have to see if we can do it earlier than the end of the month.
But I want people to start thinking about, it's not going to be Yay we're out of this we're back to normal. It's going to be can we slowly and thoughtfullly find an increase in the social connections that we all really want and some of the activities that we've had to curtail due because of the risks of transmission and do so in the coming weeks" -- Doctor Bonnie Henry
Though Dr. Henry did caution that should the variants being seen of late increase in the province, then all bets are off and more measures may be required.For more notes on the province's work towards a COVID response see our archive here.
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