The province’s Health Minister has some advice as British Columbians get set for the BC Day long weekend.
“There is no vaccine and there is no cure, so that means if you’re invited to a private party, take care,” Adrian Dix said, on the Jeff Andreas Show.
“Make sure that there are not too many people there because you are essentially joining the bubble if you don’t know who’s going to be there, of any number of other people who are at that party.”
Dix says if we don’t keep our case count low in the province, people are inevitably going to have to take steps back to bring things under control again.
“So I think people have to be prudent. They have to be careful, they have to follow some simple rules, they got to wash their hands a lot and all the other things that they’ve been doing,” he added.
“We have to use our COVID sense.”
Dix hopes that people have learned from what happened in Kelowna on and around Canada Day, noting the good news is that is no one in acute care hospitals in the Interior Health Authority with the novel coronavirus.
“When we make mistakes, we learn. We adapt our behaviour and in doing so, we inspire each other to do better,” he added. “The past weeks have shown what can happen in some places when we let our guard down. It’s shown us how COVID-19 bursts our bubble when we fail to stay within it.”
“We’ve pulled together and we made sacrifices and for many of us, the sacrifices have been heartbreaking. Where we stand today is due to our individual and collective efforts to stop the spread.”
Provincial health Officer, Dr. Bonnie Henry thanked people during a briefing on Thursday for changing their behaviour after the spike in cases this month.
“This is going to be our COVID summer, an unusual summer, a summer of doing things differently, but we can do it,” she said.
Health officials announced nine new cases across the Interior Health Authority today, part of 50 new cases province-wide heading into the long weekend.
As well, the province also released a ‘good times guide ‘ which health officials say is B.C.’s ‘playbook for how to have fun and to keep each other safe and healthy.’
