Not endemic yet, but we need to shift how we manage COVID-19: Henry

It’s not a shift to an endemic, but Friday's media briefing from the province’s health officer represented a major shift in B.C.’s COVID-19 response.

Dr. Bonnie Henry said key hallmarks of tracking, managing and mitigating affects of the virus such as contact tracing and mass testing are no longer effective against the faster moving Omicron variant.

“We cannot eliminate all risk and I think that’s something we need to understand and accept, as this virus has changed and has become part of what we will be living with for years to come,” she said.

Henry emphasized the need for people to stay at home if they are unwell and use an updated BC CDC symptom checker to determine if they need to be tested.

High risk groups, including people who are clinically extremely vulnerable, immunocompromised or over the age of 70, continue to be most likely to require testing.

New direction from the provincial health officer also suggested close contacts of confirmed COVID-19 cases didn’t need to isolate, but rather continue using layers of protection and self-monitor.

“As long as we are feeling well in this new context, we can and must be going to work, going to school and socializing safely in our small groups. We absolutely need to pay attention to how we are feeling and making sure we have a very low threshold for staying away.”

Despite the adjustment in tone and direction, Henry said the province wasn’t in a new phase of the situation.

“We are clearly not in a place where it’s endemic right now, what we are doing is adjusting to the changes we’ve seen from the new variant, it’s what we’re dealing with right now.”

She said the Omicron variant posed a completely different challenge compared to previous strains, particularly Delta, which inflicted more severe illness with long incubation periods.

Delta’s make-up allowed time for public health to contact trace and, in some cases, vaccinate at risk individuals.

Omicron’s higher transmissibility and shorter incubation time, combined with relatively milder outcomes, is not affording the same luxury, Dr. Henry said.

“This is highly infectious now and has a shorter incubation period. Many people will have mild or asymptomatic infections and not even realize they’re infected, and we have new and better interventions including vaccines and now, some treatments.”

Dr. Henry again pushed vaccination as the best defence against serious COVID-19 outcomes.

She said while it may not be as effective against Omicron as it was against previous strains for stopping spread of the virus, it’s demonstrably successful at preventing hospitalizations and death.

“Young people who are vaccinated and even older people who are vaccinated with three doses, your risk of having severe enough illness that you need hospitalization is negligible, it’s under one per cent.”

Data from the BC Centre for Disease Control presented by Dr. Henry a week prior showed unvaccinated people faced a 12 times greater risk of hospitalization, 27 times greater risk of requiring critical care and 40 times greater risk of death than those who have been vaccinated.

Latest numbers

B.C. is reporting 2,364 new cases of COVID-19 with nine new deaths. There were 924 people in hospital, an increase of 33 compared to Thursday's report. A total of 130 are in critical care, an increase of 11 over the previous day.

In the Interior there were 655 new cases, and 101 people in hospital, two more than the previous day. There were 20 people receiving critical care, three more than on Thursday.

Editor's note: this story was amended to update figures for Friday for the Interior.