B.C. health officials have extended COVID-19 circuit breaker restrictions for another five weeks, asking people not to travel within the province over May long weekend.
The restrictions announced on March 29 were initially slated to be in place until today, but will now be in place until May 25. Those restrictions most notably include a ban on indoor dining and group fitness classes, which the province has said are among the workplaces that see the highest rates of transmission.
Provincial Health Officer Dr. Bonnie Henry says the extension means no intra-provincial travel. As an example, she’s asking people not to travel outside of the Lower Mainland if that’s where they live, and vice versa.
Premier John Horgan also says, as of Friday, people can be fined if they travel outside of their health authority for non-essential reasons. Horgan says police will have the ability to do “random audits” and stop travellers and ask where they are going. A similar order was brought in in Ontario last week.
The province says these “circuit breaker” rules announced three weeks ago have not yet had the impact they need.
When they were announced, new daily COVID-19 cases were at about 900, but the weekly average has risen since then and, as of April 15, was at about 1,100 new cases per day. Hospitalizations have also risen by more than one-third in the past three weeks to record levels.
Horgan also says business relief funding announced last week will continue to be available for businesses that have been forced to shut down or limit their operations because of the new restrictions.
Meanwhile, as of today, the B.C. government has also opened up the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine to anyone aged 40 and older in the province. In the past three weeks, the vaccine has only been available for people aged 55 to 65.
As it stands, people over the age of 63 are able to book a vaccine appointment as a mass vaccine clinic like the one at McArthur Island in Kamloops. People over the age of 18 will be able to register for a vaccine dose by this Friday.