Note: There probably will not be posts on Wednesday and Thursday.
Press Conference
Today is kind of a busy day today, so this discussion will be somewhat abbreviated.
- They have now identified five Omicron cases in BC and expect there to be more.
- The feds had identified 204 people originally who had recently travelled to suspect countries; that got expanded to three hundred something, and these five cases are mostly from this group. All of the cases had travelled recently to the danger list of countries: Nigeria, southern Africa, Egypt, and Iran.
- Three were fully vaccinated, two were unvaccinated, ranging in age from 18 to 60 years old.
- Dr.H talked about the booster program:
- She talked about who was prioritized, etc. I don’t think any of that was new except that she mentioned that people who got two doses of AZ would be prioritized over people who got at least one mRNA. (She also mentioned that they have been assured that they will get some more AZ for those who want to stay AZ/AZ+AZ. If you want an AZ booster, call the call centre and get on their list. Similarly if you want J&J, call the call centre.)
- To date, over 500K boosters have been given.
- NACI’s recent recommendations align with BC’s practice, yay. (I didn’t check point-by-point, that’s just what she said.)
- If it’s been six months since your second shot, chill, the goal is to get people six to EIGHT months after their second dose, and eight months might actually give more durable protection.
- Half of seniors over 70 have gotten their boosters.
- Pharmacies are in the process of getting integrated into the booster program. 216 have been integrated, with 1000 to come. This means that on the GetVaccinated web site, you’ll see pharmacies right there as places you can get a shot, you don’t need to take a separate step of contacting pharmacies directly.
- Some immunocompromised people got a third dose which Dr.H is now defining to be part of the primary series; they will be eligible for a booster.
- They expect to start issuing invitations to those 65+ at the end of this week.
- Dix said that there had been protestors at a clinic in Prince George and the RCMP told them to go away under the Access to Services Act.
- Dix gave stats on surgeries, which I mostly tuned out.
- The number of people in hospital was very very close to the number of base beds.
- 85 surgeries got postponed due to floods and mudslides.
Statistics
Today: +324 cases, +1 death, +6,144 first doses, +2,528 second doses, +12,746 other doses.
Currently 242 in hospital / 82 in ICU, 2,814 active cases, 215,577 recovered.
| first doses | second doses | third doses | |
| of adults | 91.7% | 88.7% | 12% |
| of over-12s | 91.3% | 88.2% | 11% |
| of over-5s | 85.6% | 82.0% | * |
| of all BCers | 83.4% | 79.9% | 9.9% |
Charts
