Despite promising news on B.C.'s vaccination rollout, don't expect much of a relaxation of restrictions any time soon.
Dr. Bonnie Henry announced Thursday that B.C.'s age-based vaccine rollout is running ahead of schedule, and the province is going to be offering hundreds of thousands of the AstraZeneca vaccine to frontline workers as well over the next couple months.
By the end of April, 25 per cent of the province's population should have their first dose of the vaccine. But don't expect to get back to pre-pandemic life this spring.
“There's going to be very little change in the next two months,” Dr. Henry said Thursday. “But the more people who are immunized, whether it's in the workplace stream or whether it's in our main age-based stream, that get's us that much closer.
She said the vaccine isn't a "get out of jail free card," as the virus can still be transmitted to others who aren't vaccinated yet.
In the shorter term, Dr. Henry said she's been working with faith leaders to figure out how to safely hold small indoor church services later this month, along with opening up youth sports in April. She said she's looking at opening up visitation in long-term care homes “sooner rather than later” as well.
Students graduating high school this year should also be able to mark the big day with some type of ceremony.
“It has been such a challenging year for youth,” she said. “If we can continue through this [vaccination] program that we're doing, we can have something special to mark that ceremony.”
She said people should not be expecting to host large weddings in April, but if the vaccination rollout goes to plan, “we'll be looking by the end of the summer and into the fall at being able to have some local gatherings again with larger numbers.”
And while Dr. Henry was pressed for more details about just what the summer may look like, that's still very much up in the air.
“I wish I could tell you; unfortunately, I can just give you a sense of what could happen,” she said. “What I would like to see is that our transmission drops off, that we have no more clusters and outbreaks, and three weeks after all of the younger people that we have in our lives are immunized, we're able to go back to lots of things, but I just don't (see) that yet.”
The one thing she said we won't see this year is large international travel.
“[Things] that bring people from many other countries to B.C. for an event – whether it's a conference or a meeting or a wedding or a family gathering – those things will be dangerous because we know that a vaccine is not available equally around the world,” Dr. Henry said.
“Things like large festivals that have people coming from multiple places are not likely to happen to this year. Things like cruise ships coming into B.C. are not going to happen this year either.”
