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BC Lifts the Veil on Easing Restrictions

Dix and Henry explain why they see progress yet choose the slower path for reopening.

Moira Wyton 5 May 2020TheTyee.ca

Moira Wyton is The Tyee’s health reporter. Follow her @moirawyton or reach her here. This reporting beat is made possible by the Local Journalism Initiative.

Monday’s update by B.C. provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry included positive news. Only 20 people with the virus were in intensive care, the lowest number since mid-March. 

Of 199 individuals admitted to intensive care, 28 have died, 110 have recovered and the remainder are still being treated.

The briefing set the stage for Premier John Horgan’s announcement of provincial reopening plans on Wednesday.

New dynamic modelling of the pandemic presented by Health Minister Adrian Dix and Henry “helps us understand where we fit,” she said.

“This is, I believe, the end of the beginning of this pandemic,” said Henry. “We have deflected our curve, we are coming down nicely, and we have measures in place that are working.”

Provinces with much higher infection and hospitalization rates per capita, such as Alberta, Ontario and Quebec, have already announced plans to ease restrictions beginning early in May.

But B.C. officials have been clear the province will reopen later than its peers.

Henry’s presentation estimated the current measures have reduced contact between British Columbians to 30 per cent of normal levels.

The models indicate that cases and hospitalizations would be manageable and continue in a downward trend if guidelines were relaxed and contacts doubled to about 60 per cent of normal, Henry said. 

If measures were relaxed only enough to limit contacts to 40 per cent of normal levels, the province could see no new hospitalizations in July, she said.

But if restrictions were to lift too much or too quickly, a surge in cases and hospitalizations could overwhelm the health-care system and undo the progress made so far.

“We must find that right balance to protect lives,” said Henry. “But without allowing those opportunities for rapid and exponential growth.”

This could mean rolling out physical distancing measures used in grocery stores to other retailers as they reopen, and letting sports leagues begin again with some modifications.

Henry said she won’t be changing orders on the number of people who can gather, currently set at 50. She advised those planning weddings to consider how they can be smaller and include those at greater risk of serious illness without placing them at risk.

“We can have increased connections with people and we can have safer connections with people,” said Henry.

Physical distancing will still be key in this new phase, not simply wearing masks in our normal activity levels, she said.

“This will be a different summer than any of us has ever known,” said Dix.

But given how effective public health measures have been in flattening B.C.’s curve, officials say they are unconcerned that any relaxations of restrictions, to be announced Wednesday, would be taken too far by the public.

“We know what we need to do, we know where the limits are, and we know people want to do the right thing,” said Henry.

The COVID-19 pandemic has touched almost every community in B.C.

But it’s taken the greatest toll on men, people over 50 and those with underlying health conditions across the province.

Only 45 per cent of identified cases in B.C. are men. But they account for 69 per cent of those admitted to critical care since March and 72 per cent of deaths, according to new data presented by public health officials Monday.

And the disproportionate impact on men is stumping public health officials.

“We really don’t understand why,” Henry said. “There is so much actually that we don’t yet know about this virus.”

COVID-19 is known to be more dangerous to older people. In B.C. 97 per cent of deaths have involved people over 50, and 84 per cent of people who died had pre-existing conditions like diabetes or respiratory diseases.

One-third of men in their 70s who became infected were admitted to intensive care units.

But the majority of cases are still amongst individuals between 30 and 60. About 21 per cent of positive cases in B.C. have been health-care workers; only eight per cent of whom were admitted to critical care.  [Tyee]

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