FILE PHOTO - A B.C. digital vaccine card is pictured in this submitted photo.
Image Credit: SUBMITTED/Province of B.C.
February 09, 2022 - 4:50 PM
B.C. will not follow the lead of some other provinces when it comes to removing COVID restrictions such as vaccine passports.
“I don’t think we’re the outlier when you think about the number of provinces and territories we have,” Dr. Bonnie Henry said at a news briefing today, Feb. 9.
Alberta and Saskatchewan will be removing their vaccine passport requirements in the next few days and she was asked during the briefing how she felt about being an outlier because B.C. is not scheduled to do that until June.
“From the very beginning, there were two reasons why we have the B.C. Vaccination Card in place,” Dr. Henry said. “One of them, of course, is incentives for discretionary activities that it applies to. It’s an incentive to encourage people to be vaccinated. That’s what is really important, especially at first. But it’s also that all of those settings – and we chose those settings particularly – are ones that are indoor settings where we know this spreads more rapidly and we’re seeing that with Omicron.
“The difference in spread between someone who’s vaccinated and who’s unvaccinated, it’s like saying Christine Sinclair and I both play soccer. There’s a qualitative difference to that. One of us is more likely to score a goal than the other.”
Health Minister Adrian Dix jumped to Dr. Henry’s defence, pointing out that B.C. has consistently stuck by its health care measures where others have announced things then withdrawn and B.C. has made fewer changes to health orders than some other jurisdictions.
READ MORE: B.C.’s top doctor imposing more, not fewer, COVID restrictions
Dr. Henry noted that COVID will be a serious respiratory illness for at least another year and it seems to follow respiratory seasons when it’s more transmissible.
That being said, there are a number of health care orders that are scheduled to expire on Feb. 16. Between now and then, she will continue to consult with industry representatives and places like schools to determine what changes might be made and announce them on Feb. 15.
She noted, in particular, that the health-care system is still very stressed, especially in the Interior Health and Northern Health regions.
When asked about a Prince George nightclub that opened there last weekend and ordered people to remove their masks before entering, Dr. Henry said that was a “slap in the face” to health-care workers who have been overworked dealing with the pandemic.
At that same time, she’s sympathetic, especially to younger people, who have felt the strain of lockdown rules.
“We need to continue to work together so we can put this behind us once and for all,” Dr. Henry said.
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