Long-term care rules for visits will loosen, top doctor promises
With COVID-19 vaccines kicking in, guidelines will be revised, Henry says
The provincial health officer says she will loosen family visitation restrictions at long-term care facilities by the end of this month.
However, Dr. Bonnie Henry said an increasing percentage of variant cases within daily COVID-19 counts was worrying and community transmission needs to come down.
Under a long-standing provincial health order, only one permanent designated family member can visit a care-facility resident — and not if there is in active outbreak.
“Right now, because there's still so much transmission, we're not at the point where we can just open up care homes because that still puts people at risk,” Henry said. “But we are working on those guidelines and I have committed, by the end of this month, we will have new guidance — even before that if we can — that will allow for increased visits with our loved ones in long-term care.”
Henry said the most recent longterm care facility outbreak — at the Cottonwoods Care Centre in Kelowna — had two cases among residents who had been fully vaccinated. Two staff and 10 residents in total have tested positive.
She said the vaccines are “very effective.” Some studies have put their effectiveness at above 90 per cent. Yet “you can continue to have transmission even when people are fully vaccinated,” Henry said.
“Right now, we are not at that point where we have enough of the people who are at risk immunized that we can have overall guidance, but it's coming in a measured way in the next little while as the rates in our community hopefully go down, and as more people are protected.”
On Monday, Henry told the presidents of all public colleges and universities in B.C. to prepare for a full return to on-campus learning in the fall.
“School, I can say with some confidence, for K-12 will look much more normal by next September because the risks in our community will be decreased by the immunization program,” she added.
“Same for universities. I think we need to start planning for full back to campus and campus life and those important connections and social and emotional growth that we see in those situations.”
Henry reported 144 COVID-19 variant test results over the past three days, leading to a jump in active variant cases from 16 to 87.
She said the bulk of the 394 variant cases identified in B.C. so far had been in Fraser Health — mostly the variant identified in the U.K., but also some of the variant identified in South Africa. These mutations of the original COVID-19 are more infectious.
Henry reported 1,462 new cases of COVID-19 over the past three days — with B.C.'s seven-day daily average remaining steady. She said there were 4,854 total active cases of the disease, of which 240 were in hospital including 66 in intensive care.
Almost 250,000 people in B.C. have been immunized, including 86,925 who have received second doses. She said B.C. would be dealing with COVID -19 for many months and possibly years — however, social restrictions would be relaxed by the summer as vaccines rolled out.