Monday June 14, 2021 | VICTORIA, BC
by Mary P Brooke, B.Sc., Editor | Island Social Trends
Premier John Horgan says people will “go at their own pace” as economy and society begin to re-open in BC. Step 2 starts June 15 when people can start having personal gatherings, attend sporting events outdoors, and be in larger groups in restaurants. Travel will be okay within BC, but with Horgan today encouraging people to still only travel for essential reasons.
Provincial Health Officer Dr Bonnie Henry says she hopes vaccination levels will reach 85 to 90 percent in BC (without specifying whether that was one dose or two doses). That’s her comfort zone “but would like to see it even higher”.
For his part, Health Minister Adrian Dix said: “Everything we do depends on people getting vaccinated.” He was referring to how the progress of Steps (1 through 4) will proceed, as well as how public health orders will be needed.
Continued contact tracing:
Dr Henry says public places (workplace, sports, etc.) will still be relying on COVID safety plans, but that still “knowing who’s there” is essential for ongoing contact tracing (‘test, trace and track’ is the mantra).
Criteria for moving through Steps 1 through 4:
The main criteria for BC moving through Steps 1 through 4 toward a full societal reopening are levels of first-dose vaccination as well as declining rates of hospitalization (including ICU) and lowering numbers of deaths.
None of that refers to elimination of COVID-19; the virus is here to stay and will become part of the respiratory responses of public health in BC and across Canada according to a wide range of health officials.
Race between variants & vaccines:
The main concern on the epidemiological side is the race between new variants and the level of vaccination in the population. The Delta variant (B.1.617.2 / India) has now caused 3.15% of the test-positive COVID-19 cases in BC (BC Centre for Disease Control data for May30-June5 as released June 11, 2021).
The Delta variant is seen in fewer test-positive cases of COVID-19 in BC (compared to Alpha/B.1.1.7/UK and Gamma/P.1/Brazil-Japan) but is increasingly thought to be more easily transmissible and/or causing more serious illness, as Dr Henry outlined again today.
Until the entire population of the earth is vaccinated (at least to levels of herd immunity), COVID-19 will continue to be a health threat. Life is full of risks, and this is now one of them.
Making your own decisions:
Which led to a few questions to the Premier and PHO today about how people can best make personal decisions about re-emerging into active social and economic activity.
The answer really is harsh: each person has to make their own decision. Factors include levels of health of family members, necessity of any given activity, and levels of infection in a person’s local area.
Dr Henry and her team have done a Herculian effort to educate people in BC about COVID, how it spreads, and how to manage our exposure to it, but it’s a weighty responsibility to be left on the shoulders of each individual (and for parents on behalf of their children). Not the least of which involves being ‘up on the numbers’ and staying informed about local levels of infection, which variants are circulating, and which public health orders or guidelines are currently in place.
In some ways, restaurants and other business owners are back to enforcing the regulations as part of the own individualized COVID safety plans. Plans will need to be revised as the Steps roll out.
Shifting the approach:
This is the first COVID-19 update in BC during the now 16-month pandemic period where there was no lead-in about or mention of exact case numbers, hospitalizations or deaths. Dr Henry and Minister Dix have done about 150 of those since January 2020.
There will be more press conferences about COVID, to be sure, but that job of scouring through the many statistics of COVID-19 in BC is increasing being left to journalists and everyone else to explore in the COVID section of the BC CDC website.
This shows a shift from the epidemiological to the socioeconomic. Life goes on. BC is trying to do it carefully.
Footnote on the role of journalists:
That job of scouring through the many statistics of COVID-19 in BC is increasing being left to journalists and the choice exercised by media outlets to provide that information. A few months ago Premier Horgan did express his gratitude to “all media” in BC who have been working hard to cover the news of the long pandemic.
That’s an interesting comparison as to how Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has been responding to media lately. For the last few months he’s been noting something in writing as each live media question is asked of him (possibly the journalist’s name or outlet?), and this past weekend at the G7 in Cornwall England he apparently aimed to tease print journalists that “yesterday’s newspapers are used to wrap fish”, then said he was ‘just kidding’.
Journalists write history in the moment, separate and apart from the swirl of what anyone and everyone posts in social media. Government will refer first (and more so) to the work of professional media, while perhaps taking an overview of public opinion in social media. Historians will go to reputable sources for their accumulating of things as they have been.
===== ABOUT ISLAND SOCIAL TRENDS:
The Island Social Trends publication is entirely online for access by people to the news. Paying subscribers also welcome (they receive a digest of all articles, by email). Island Social Trends Editor is Mary P Brooke, B.Sc, Cert PR and this summer the copy desk editor is Jalen C Codrington, with Molly Pearce as freelance writer.
