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With the increase of COVID-19 cases with the Omicron variant to about 360 today, Dec. 17, from 159 yesterday, new health restrictions will be imposed throughout B.C. as of Monday morning at 12:01 a.m.

The new restrictions include limiting the number of people at personal indoor events to your household and up to 10 additional people, or one household, because most of the new cases are amongst young, usually vaccinated people at things like parties. Most cases are in larger urban centres in the Lower Mainland, health officials said in a technical briefing today.

Everyone at such personal gatherings must be vaccinated.

All New Year’s events are cancelled, although New Year’s dinners are still allowed in restaurants.

There are no limits on how late restaurants can stay open or how late alcohol can be served, as had been imposed earlier in the pandemic. Everyone needs to be vaccinated, masked when not seated at their tables and they will not be able to mingle with people at other tables. High risk activities, like dancing, continue to be banned.

Organized events will have limits on them so that venues with 1,000 or more seats can only be at 50% capacity.

Currently, events of 50 or less were allowed to be attended by unvaccinated people. That ends on Monday so everyone will need their vaccination passports.

Since Omicron has spread at sporting events, all sports tournaments and the travel associated with them are now cancelled.

Faith gatherings continue to require everyone to be masked. They can be at 100% capacity if everyone is vaccinated and 50% capacity if they allow unvaccinated people to attend.

READ MORE: Interior Health hospitals overloaded, continue to lead B.C. in postponed surgeries

The new rules will be in place until 11:59 p.m. Jan. 31.

It was pointed out that Omicron is now the dominant COVID variant in Ontario, and B.C. is probably a week or so behind Ontario, so case counts will increase here.

No one has yet been hospitalized with the Omicron variant in B.C. It does seem that Omicron is either less deadly than the Delta variant or that vaccinations may prevent serious illness, health officials said.

The rapidly changing situation with Omicron means the growth in cases will be closely monitored to see if changes have to be made. Right now, the virus is being spread mostly at large social gatherings where people are not wearing masks, which is why tighter restrictions on places like restaurants are not being imposed.

For more on the provincial health officer's orders and guidance go here.

For more on the regional restrictions by health authority go here.

 — This story was updated at 2:25 p.m. Friday, Dec. 17, 2021 to add more details about the restrictions.

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