British Columbians have been successful in reducing the spread of COVID-19, but the pandemic is still far from over and the return to normalcy will be slow and gradual, provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry said on Friday.
In a detailed presentation on Friday morning, Henry and Health Minister Adrian Dix said provincial data shows that public health measures in place in B.C. are working.
"We've had a decrease in new cases, even though we've expanded our testing again," Henry said. "The difference between what could have happened and what actually happened is because of the measures that we, as the people of British Columbia, have undertaken. These are the things that allowed us to bend the curve."
The B.C. Centre for Disease Control compiled location-tracking data gathered by Google Mobility that shows, starting after March 9, a marked decline in the number of British Columbians going to workplaces, stores, entertainment venues and transit stations, and an increase in the number of people at home. After March 16, the mobility data also shows a downward trend in the number of people at parks, grocery stores and pharmacies as well.
The introduction of fairly stringent public health measures early in the pandemic gave B.C. an advantage over places like northern Italy and Quebec, Henry said, where stringent measures were only put in place once exponential growth in the number of cases had started.
"Our pandemic started earlier than the other parts of Canada, and we have flattened that curve. It has levelled off, and we are starting to see that in Quebec and Ontario as well," she said. "(But) it takes up to six weeks to know if people are going to recover from this disease. Sadly, it is the truth that we are going to see more people die from this disease in the next few weeks."
While the number of people hospitalized and in critical care for COVID-19 is trending downward after peaking earlier this month, dynamic modelling of what the future could look like for B.C. shows that lifting public health measures now could cause a huge spike in new cases and new hospitalizations, Henry said.
Modelling data presented on Friday assumes interpersonal contact in B.C. is about 30 per cent of the normal amount. A return to even 80 per cent of normal interpersonal contact would likely trigger an exponential growth in new cases and new hospitalizations, the data shows.
"All the sacrifices we've made in British Columbia will be for nought if we go back to normal (now)," Henry said. "Our new normal for the coming months... is going to be a modification of what we have now. We are going to develop an evidence-based and thoughtful way forward."
Henry's teams and the provincial government are looking at whether measures can be relaxed or modified to allow people to socialize more, the medical system to resume non-essential surgeries and procedures, and the economy to get back to work.
"There is some room in the future to maintain distance, but have some social contact – to allow businesses to reopen," she said. "I can't tell you exactly what it looks like, but we are looking at every aspect of our society. I believe this summer we will have the opportunity to have more social interaction than we've had for the last couple months, but we're not there yet."
International travel is likely off the table for the rest of the year, but students may return to classes in some limited fashion, she said.
The needs, and how those measures roll out, may differ from region to region, Henry said.
"The north has been an integral part of our planning since the beginning. We have put in additional testing capacity, because we knew that was an issue there. We have a strategy to support transportation that we may announce next week," Henry said. "The strategies will be slightly different, or more nuanced, and the timing may be different. (But) the approach will be the same across the whole province."
READY FOR THE WORST
While B.C. is doing well controlling this outbreak of COVID-19 now, the province may be in store for another outbreak later, Henry said.
"We're still in the eye of that storm," she said. "We don't know what is going to happen with this virus. We don't know if its going to wane away in the summer. We don't know if we'll see a surge in respiratory illness season in the fall."
The threat will only end when the majority of people in the community are immune, either because they have had COVID-19 and survived or because a vaccine has been developed, she said.
"We don't have enough people in our community who've had the virus to develop herd immunity or, as I call it, community immunity. And we don't want that. Even in places where they have had explosive outbreaks of this disease, only a minority of the population have had it," she said. "What we really need is a vaccine, and it's going to be awhile before we get a get a vaccine."
When the outbreak started, B.C. began planning to deal with a worst-case scenario – a rapid, widespread outbreak like the one in northern Italy, Health Minister Adrian Dix said.
The number of people hospitalized with COVID-19 in B.C. peaked at 149, and the number in critical care peaked at 72, Dix said, "well below our hospital capacity."
"Our needs at the moment are well under the preparations we've made," Dix said.
Across B.C. there are 951 critical care beds available, of which 58 were filled with COVID-19 patients and 377 with non-COVID-19 critical care patients as of April 13 at midnight. In Northern Health there are 86 critical care beds, of which one was used to treat a COVID-19 patient and 28 for other patients as of April 13, for an overall occupancy rate of 33.7 per cent.
"We've increased our ventilator capacity. We've gone from 457 in the beginning of March to 681 now," Dix said.
In the Northern Health region there are 36 adult critical care ventilators available, 33 in regular inventory and three from the provincial pandemic reserve.
As of April 14, 38 COVID-19 patients were being treated with ventilators in B.C., and a total of 140 adult ventilators were in use for all patients.
"We're preparing a plan resume scheduled surgeries, we think that may be in May," Dix said. "That will be a very challenging plan to put together."
If scheduled, non-urgent surgeries resume, that will reduce the extra capacity currently in place to deal with a surge in COVID-19 cases, he said.
The provincial government plans to continue building B.C.'s capacity to deal with another potential outbreak of COVID-19 in the fall, he added.
"Our next big challenge is to continue these goals without undermining our social fabric, without undermining our economy. We have never been this confined as a community. It's unprecedented in our lifetime... and I think in the modern era," Dix said. "We've asked people to be 100 per cent all in, and for a large part they have. While being 100 per cent all in may change, we need to continue to be all in."
As of Friday, there were 1,618 cases of COVID-19 in British Columbia, including 33 in Northern Health.
