On Friday, Dr. Bonnie Henry, BC’s Provincial Health Officer, stated that British Columbia is unlikely to join Step 4 or relax any further COVID-19 requirements shortly.
She also stressed that the province’s COVID-19 outbreak response would be expanded from the Central Okanagan throughout the Interior Health Region.
According to the COVID-19 restart plan that the province disclosed last May, BC is set to initiate Step 4 as early as September 7. However, due to some “ongoing factors,” this timeline will not be feasible.
The main reason why British Columbia won’t be able to realize Step 4 in its COVID-19 restart plan soon is the emergence of the more contagious Delta Variant.
“And as we know, the Delta strain is much more transmissible in a variety of different settings and also the time of year, we’re going into the fall again,” she points out.
Although BC has met its immunization goals for Step 4, Henry and Health Minister Adrian Dix stressed that the recorded COVID-19 test-positive cases and the number of hospitalized individuals remained somewhat similar.
