B.C.’s top doctor is asking people to keep up the fight against COVID-19 as the province appears to have gotten a handle on the situation after a spike in cases in August and September.
Dr. Bonnie Henry says that includes avoiding unnecessary travel to prevent explosive growth like what is happening in Ontario and Quebec.
“We need to be careful this weekend. Thanksgiving weekend. We need to keep our group small. We need to avoid unnecessary travel like we did in the spring,” she said. “And it is travel even within B.C., but particularly having people come in from other provinces, other places in the world.”
Henry says as it stands the average person in B.C. is having about 45 per cent of their normal close contacts, down from 70 per cent at the end of summer.
“As we saw this summer, travelling to other communities can sometimes mean we bring this virus with us,” Henry added. “While many of us would often travel to friends and family to spend time together, this weekend, stay close to home and reach out and include those friends and family in a way that is safe.”
She notes while the number of new COVID cases continues to be high, the rate of growth has started to drop. And that has her cautiously optimistic that the curve is being flattened once again.
“We started to flatten our curve. We started to do the things that we know will help us get through these next few months and its important for our health of our communities that we continue to do this so that our businesses can stay open, our restaurants can stay open, our schools can stay open,” Henry said.
As noted before, the BC CDC has released updated guidelines on how to have a safe Halloween this year amid the COVID-19 pandemic. It includes skipping Halloween parties this year, to wear a mask with your costume, and to trick or treat in small groups. For anyone sick or self-isolating or not looking to be a part of Halloween, the advice is to turn off your porch light.
Also released were guidelines on how to have safer celebrations including Thanksgiving.
Over the weekend, health officials reported 358 new cases of COVID-19, 330 of which were in the Lower Mainland. There were just 13 cases in the Interior Health Authority.
