Premier John Horgan has announced that a committee of deputy ministers, reporting directly to a new cabinet committee chaired by himself and Health Minster Adrian Dix, will oversee implementation of a Pandemic Provincial Co-ordination Plan in response to the worldwide COVID-19 outbreak.
“From the first day the world learned of this outbreak, B.C.’s public health officials have delivered the most robust response of any jurisdiction in this hemisphere. Through this co-ordination plan, we will ensure they have the support they need so we are prepared for all possibilities,” Horgan said.
At a press conference March 6, provincial medical health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry confirmed the number of known cases in B.C. remains at 21, with one person in hospital and four having fully recovered.
The patient in hospital is the first in the province to have contracted the virus through contact in the community and not direct contact during travel or with an infected person who had travelled to an area experiencing a serious outbreak.
Henry said it is not surprising to see a case of community spread and “a lot of detailed disease detective work” has gone into finding out where and when the woman came into contact with another infected person.
She said her advice for families planning spring-break travel is “somewhere in between cancelling and not worrying.”
“This is an evolving situation,” she said. “Travel is still very safe in Canada and in B.C. in particular and we’re confident of that… I’m still confident that it is safe to travel in the U.S. as well. International travel can be very challenging right now.”
Henry said people planning to travel internationally should heed advisories from the federal government unless it is absolutely necessary to travel, particularly to China, northern Italy, South Korea, and Iran. “It comes down to your own risk assessment… You may not be at risk for this virus necessarily, but you may be at risk of being caught in a quarantine put in suddenly – are you prepared for that?”
In terms of general precautions, Henry said protective masks are not very effective at keeping people from getting sick but they are “very important” for people who are already sick. “If you’re going to seek medical care, if you need to be out when you’re sick, then putting a mask on keeps your droplets in and protects others from you.”
Henry also said that with regular flu season still under way, officials are working to ensure health care resources don’t become overstretched.
“We all need to take those measures right now to do everything we can to reduce the transmission of respiratory illnesses. It comes down to those basic things that we talk about every day. Cleaning your hands regularly, covering your mouth when you cough, not touching your face and your eyes, and really importantly right now, having a very low threshold,” Henry said.
“Even if you just have the sniffles, even if you’re starting to feel unwell – stay away from others. Stay home from school. Stay home from work. This is the one thing that we can do right now that is really important to prevent the transmission of this infection.”
The province’s COVID-19 pandemic response plan includes a wide range of preparedness actions to help individuals, local governments, health-sector organizations and businesses to plan for the possibility of a pandemic, focusing on delaying, containing and preparing the province to minimize serious illness and economic disruption.
“The COVID-19 situation continues to evolve here in B.C., Canada and other countries in the world. We are at a critical point in the fight against the virus and we will ensure B.C.’s health system and population are ready for any scenario,” Dix said.
Phase 1 of the plan, which is being implemented, involves expanding the ability to continue testing, close collaboration with the federal government on border surveillance, and to identify and isolate individuals who test positive for the virus and their close contacts.
Dix said the priority is to delay the onset of widespread community transmission for as long as possible.
According to the release sent out following the premier’s announcement, Phase 2 would see a ramping up of cross-government co-ordination and preparations for the use of emergency powers.
Four priorities were spelled out:
Protecting Population. Actions would include increasing testing capacity and expanding communication with at-risk groups. It would also enact government continuity plans to prepare for the possibility of high absence rates due to illness, or if employees are absent in order to care for family. It would also provide supports for businesses and institutions to manage the same challenges through a sustained three- to four-month outbreak, including grocery stores, public transportation, schools and the tourism sector.
Protecting Vulnerable Citizens. Actions would include ways to protect seniors in long-term care, assisted living and home and community care, which could include reducing the number of people coming into facilities, screening visitors and increasing testing for illness of residents and health-care workers.
Protecting Health Workers. Actions would include implementing standardized preparedness plans at the local level to support health-care workers to respond to a wider outbreak and provincially manage and co-ordinate supply chains for hospital, community and primary care. It would also bring in additional health-care capacity for specific communities under stress by establishing a list of health-care workers who could be rapidly redeployed for a sustained period.
Supporting Health-Care Capacity. Actions would use established emergency operation committees across health authorities to assess the ability to plan and respond at a local level to a community-wide outbreak and create capacity, as needed, in hospitals for discharging low-risk patients, deferring scheduled surgeries and procedures, identifying capacity for new care spaces within hospitals, and ensuring bed equipment capacity. It would also ensure readiness to implement hospital-wide protocols to safely triage and separate anyone presenting with respiratory illness.
“The COVID-19 pandemic response plans and materials are developed in partnership with our experts at the BC Centre for Disease Control, based on our provincial influenza pandemic plans that all health authorities had implemented in 2012, as well as the lessons we had learned from H1N1 and SARS in the past,” said Henry.
“Thanks to the great efforts made by our public health leaders and health-care workers, we have kept the risk of COVID-19 spread low in B.C., but it is important for people, communities and organizations to build resiliency and have plans in place, not just for the possibility of a pandemic but emergency in general.”
For recommendations on protecting yourself and your community, visit: http://www.bccdc.ca/health-info/diseases-conditions/coronavirus-(novel)
