Health officer advises cautious ‘bubble’ expansion
British Columbians will have the opportunity to “double their bubble” in the weeks to come, to perhaps share a meal with neighbours or hug your mom.
If you’ve been hunkered down in your home, avoiding contact with people from other households to avoid COVID-19, chances are you are ready to see friends and family. But how, and how many? “I believe that we are at a point where we can increase our social contact, and we can have more people in our close circle of family and friends,” the provincial health officer, Dr. Bonnie Henry, said Friday.
She urged caution, because adding another household to your in-person social circle connects you to all of their connections and that adds to the risk of viral transmission.
In a briefing at the end of the day, Henry and Health Minister Adrian Dix urged people to avoid close physical contact on Mother’s Day, unless your mom lives with you.
If households are willing to pair off and see each other exclusively, the risk of transmission tends to stay very low, said UBC math professor Daniel Coombs.
For instance, the chances of contracting a sexually transmitted disease is extremely low in a monogamous relationship, but increases sharply if one or both partners cheat.
“You’ve really got to rely on your friends’ good judgment to make the smart choices,” he said.
The goal of physical distancing, and the business closures necessitated by COVID -19, is to reduce the number of people who are infected by each person who gets the novel coronavirus to less than one. In early March, each case was reckoned to lead to two to three new infections.
“The first part of that is to reduce the number of people you come in proximity with and then to reduce the intensity of those contacts,” he said. “Staying six feet apart or putting Plexiglas in front of the cashier at the grocery store keeps the intensity of those contacts down.”
Then there is the problem of hugging, because occasions such as Mother’s Day will inevitably bring multiple households and multiple generations together.
If children are going to spend time with their grandparents, play dates with other children should be avoided, Henry said earlier this week.
“We need to do this cautiously and we need to be aware as well that people are at risk of having severe illness, we need to continue to protect them,” she said. “So, if somebody in my family is going through cancer treatment (or) we have elderly people in the family who have underlying health illnesses, we need to be very careful about how much we expand our social contact.”
If you do choose to hug mom this weekend, you should avoid expanding your bubble to include any other households, she said.
When you get together with neighbours, do it outside where you can maintain physical distance, she advised. “Make sure you do it in small numbers, so you’re not giving this virus an opportunity to spread.”
The government’s new catchphrase is “few faces and big spaces.”
While the provincial health officer hasn’t exactly given the goahead for expanded social contact, backyard visits with friends and driveway cocktail parties are already a common sight on city streets and in social media.
Expanding your bubble is taking different forms in different parts of the world, notably New Zealand where new cases have effectively dropped to zero.
At first, the bubble is essentially your own household. Those people who live alone can pair off with another singleton or couple and socialize exclusively with them. That approach was essential to easing the isolation of seniors, who can then interact with a friend or caregiver.
New Zealanders are now able to add one or two more friends to their bubble.
What you can’t do is see two people one night and four different people the next, said Henry.
She emphasized the importance of staying connected with family and friends.
“So absolutely hug your grandparents, if they’re your people,” she said. “Hug your friends if you haven’t seen them — the friends that you’ve chosen to be in each other’s bubble. That’s important. And, of course, hug your family (in) your household every day.”