Interior to pay up for Kelowna’s low rates

An indoor mask mandate has been extended from the Central Okanagan to cover the entire Interior region.

A rise in COVID-19 cases throughout Interior Health makes it necessary to require people to wear masks whenever they're inside public spaces, officials say.

And limits on the number of people attending private gatherings, both indoors and outdoors, have been extended beyond greater Kelowna to cover the IH region, which includes all communities in the Okanagan.

"We understand this news will be disheartening for many in this area (but) these steps will allow us to contain transmission," provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry said in a Friday briefing. "And, I think, the positive news is we have seen a levelling off of the transmission in the Central Okanagan where these measures have been in place.”

Since the indoor mask mandate and restrictions on gatherings were reimposed in Kelowna in early August, cases of COVID-19 have been steadily increasing in other Interior Health regions.

Most of those new cases, Henry said, are "primarily people who are not yet vaccinated."

The COVID-19 vaccination rate across Interior Health – which covers a vast region stretching from the Cariboo and North Thompson to the Alberta and U.S. borders – is more than five points below the provincial average of 83% for a first shot for people 12 and over. But it's even lower in certain IH regions.

As of midnight Friday, these restrictions, already in place in Kelowna, apply throughout the Interior Health region, which has 750,000 of B.C.'s 5.2 million residents:

– masks must be worn in all indoor public spaces by everyone 12 and up

– indoor personal gatherings will be limited to one other household or five guests

– outdoor personal gatherings, such as birthday parties and backyard barbecues, will be limited to 50 people

– indoor organized gatherings will be limited to no more than 50 people

– high intensity workout classes are suspended

– non-essential travel to and from the Interior Health region is discouraged

“The intent of these measures is to get us back to a more stable and more normal state with respect to transmission as soon as we possibly can,” Health Minister Adrian Dix said.

Other restrictions in effect in greater Kelowna, such as the closure of bars and nightclubs and a requirement that food-primary businesses stop serving alcohol at 10 p.m., have not been expanded to other regions of Interior Health.