B.C.’s Provincial Health Officer says the World Health Organization’s declaration of COVID-19 as a pandemic will not change the response in the province.
Dr. Bonnie Henry says the province has been working on the assumption that COVID-19 is a pandemic, and says that will continue in the days and weeks ahead.
“I’m that everybody will recognize that we all need to start thinking about this in a more global way. We all need to take those community separation actions that we do now,” she said.
“We need to start thinking about what we do now, will help prepare us and help protect us and protect our families, because that’s where we now most of the transmission is.”
Henry, and Health Minister Adrian Dix confirmed seven more COVID-19 cases on Wednesday, including the first case on Vancouver Island, bringing the total in the province to 46. The other cases were all in the Vancouver Coastal Health or Fraser Health areas.
Henry says while Canada still has a low risk of the virus, we are not immune to cases, hence the need for these precautions.
“We are vulnerable as every country is to importation of cases that can spread. We need to take the measures that we need to take,” she noted.
“China bought us time and we now understand a whole lot more about this virus than we did even two weeks, four weeks, six weeks ago when we first were watching what was happening there. And we can take measures that we know will help.”
Those measures include washing your hands, saying home if you are sick, and ‘social distancing’ or keeping your distance from other people.
“It’s not inevitable that everybody is going to be infected with this,” Dr. Henry added. “It’s not inevitable that our systems will be overwhelmed. We do not have to be in that position.”
There are more than 100,000 people infected around the world, including more than 100 in Canada, and in making its declaration, the World Health Organization called on countries to mitigate the social and economic impacts, while also trying to minimize the disruption to everyday life.
While a number of sports teams and events, and educational institutions are closing the doors to the public, Henry stopped short at similar requirements in B.C., but noted the situation could change.
She says there are many pros and cons to closing schools, noting that at this time there is no decision to close schools.
And while a number of sporting and other events have either cancelled, rescheduled, or closed the doors to fans, Henry stopped short of calling for similar bans in the province at this time.
