Excerpts from News Conference with Dr. Henry & Health Minister Dix on Ski Resorts, Holiday Travel & Music Events (Nov. 9, 2021)
Originally published in a TIABC Newsletter on November 12, 2021
November 9, 2021:
Dr. Henry: So, here's what I'm asking you to think about as we head towards the coming holiday season. Keep your indoor groups small. We know that indoors is more risky than outdoors. And, it's really important that if you do have an indoor group that people are vaccinated. That helps mitigate the risk of transmission.
You can spend time with your loved ones, and indeed you must spend time. We need to have that time together. But have a smaller gathering this year, perhaps with one or two of your family members, or other families, rather than the full big family reunion. And make sure everyone is vaccinated.
If you're wanting to spend time with your broader family and friends, then plan an outdoor activity instead of gathering inside where it's riskier. Go sledding or snowshoeing or hiking. We have many, many wonderful things that we can do outdoors safely, even in the winter months.
And if you're travelling to another community, whether for a day trip, for exercise, a holiday getaway, we need you to be a respectful traveller. We know how to do this. We have been through this now together for the last 20 months. We need to continue to be aware of the impact we are having on communities we're going to and the risks that we're bringing with us, and of course, the risks we bring home.
We must recognize that there are some communities right now that are dealing with very serious outbreaks of this virus still, particularly in the North, but also on Vancouver Island, in the Interior and in some areas of the Lower Mainland. And they may not be ready to accept visitors right now, so check before you go. That also includes following all of the public health orders. Just because things look different in a different community doesn't mean you can let your guard down.
Here in BC, respectful travel means being fully vaccinated, using your vaccine card if you're going in to access services or going to events in any community; wearing a mask in all indoor public venues, including local stores, ski hills. All of those areas where we know that extra layer protection is so important at this time of year as we're moving into respiratory season.
Reporter: I know you've been asked about this before, but different ski hills are now putting in different policies around vaccine cards. Some are requiring vaccine to ride the gondolas or chairlifts. Others are not. Is there any change in guidance around whether the vaccine card may be used at ski hills considering people are in close contact in these gondolas?
Dr. Henry: just around ski hills, I know we have been working with the local public health, so my colleagues in each of the areas where we have ski hills have been reviewing the safety plans with each individual ski hill and there's a couple of things that all of them must adhere to, regardless of where their headquarters are.
One of them is we have an indoor mask mandate and gondolas are like a public transit, for example, an area where mask wearing is required, absolutely, and that is the same across the board. As well, we know that most ski hills have a vaccine mandate for their workers, which is something that protects all of the workers on the hill. That's important as well. And the BC vaccine card is required in all of those settings where you have either a licensed premise, where you're serving food, restaurants, sit down restaurants, etc. So we know that there's very strong protection plans and my colleagues have been working with each of the ski hills to make sure that they are robust.
We also know -- we've seen this from last year when we didn't have immunization -- that skiing is not necessarily a higher risk activity. We're not seeing transmission outdoors, we're not seeing transmission in gondolas, even in the absence of vaccination. So it is very important to have those safety plans. It is a requirement to wear masks on gondolas, on ski lifts, in lineups when you're close to people, and are more and more important this year, of course, but we also encourage everybody who's going there to be vaccinated.
We know that traveling into the country you need to be vaccinated. We know that travel within the country now you need to be vaccinated. So those are all things that will protect us and I think that's a really important consideration as we go into this ski season, too.
Minister Dix: I'll just add to that, that Mayor Jack Crompton of Whistler called me today and we spent some time talking about this issue. He's advocating forcefully for his community, and I think it's also important for the employer, in that case, to respond to the wishes of the community, as well, and we're hopeful they'll do so. I know other ski hills across BC have done that.
Reporter: Small music venues in BC are wondering when the ban will be lifted on standing and dancing in their establishments. Fans in BC can stand, dance and sing at larger events. What is the difference between that and the smaller venue? BC will soon be the only place in Canada with these types of restrictions in place.
Dr. Henry: I actually don't agree that we're the only place in Canada, but we do know that those indoor events where you have people crowding together and dancing and singing, so the general admission, it is the same across the board for all venues. Those large venues, they must have seated areas in front of the stage. They cannot have the general admission mosh pit in front of a concert, and the application of that is the same across the board.
We are doing this incrementally. We know that indoor settings are riskier than outdoor settings. We know that the vaccine card is one of the ways that we can reduce and mitigate that risk, but it's not the same everywhere. We have to be mindful that some of these settings are riskier.
We are doing things in an incremental way. We're looking at things like the vaccination rates in the community, like the amount of virus that's circulating in the community, the ability of people to wear masks. Those are all things that I'm working with my colleagues across the province. We spent quite a bit of time this week, and we'll be looking at how do we harmonize these and make these stronger, but this is not the time to make major changes that increase risk dramatically.
It affects all of those venues across the board, where we are requiring people to have access to a seat, because when people are seated, the risk is that much lower than when you're mingling with people.
