British Columbia’s health minister says the province will stay the course with its own COVID-19 policy as the top U.S. public health agency relaxes its guidelines on the virus.
On Thursday, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention dropped its recommendation that people stay six feet apart from others and self-quarantine if they come into close contact with an infected person.
Read more: US CDC discards quarantine and distancing recommendations for COVID-19
New US guidelines no longer recommend testing people without symptoms and suggest that contact tracing be limited to healthcare settings.
“Our way is our way. America has had its own way from the beginning,” BC Health Minister Adrian Dix told Global News on Friday.
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Dix said the changes south of the border will have no bearing on BC’s message, which is currently focused on getting people to sign up for vaccine boosters.
COVID-19 is still circulating, which means the public still needs to keep their guard up, he added.
“Last week more than 15,000 people were sick at some point who work in the health care system, and that reflects that … there are significant amounts of COVID-19.”
Read more: COVID-19: Cases in BC hospitals fall to one-month low
“Right now we’re in a relatively stable situation, we’ve seen that in the results, but in the fall we’re facing the first flu season without some of these public health measures in a while, and we’re seeing the season of respiratory diseases”.
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In many ways, the new US CDC guidelines actually bring it closer to BC’s own policy.
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While the province continues to recommend social distancing, the province never recommended testing for asymptomatic people and strictly limited PCR testing even for people with symptoms last winter.
Near the start of the first wave of Omicron, BC also abandoned contact tracing and stopped recommending that people self-isolate after close contact with an infected person.
Read more: More than a third of Canadian households had COVID-19 after restrictions were lifted, survey finds
Dr. Brian Conway, medical director of the Vancouver Center for Infectious Diseases, said the old public health guidelines were intended to completely eliminate transmission, a goal that is no longer possible.
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“We’re now in an era of endemic COVID, and the key things we need to protect are staying home if we’re sick, getting all the vaccines we should get, and it’s not clear if those recommendations about distancing will be followed. to help us more effectively treat endemic COVID, so it makes sense to move forward,” he said.
Conway said masking in indoor public places remains important, especially when there is heavy transmission.
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Despite a shift toward more personal responsibility for managing COVID-19, many businesses in BC have shown a willingness to maintain protocols in place.
“We surveyed our members and about half of BC’s small businesses said they would voluntarily maintain some of their COVID-19 protocols over the summer, and that’s exactly what we’re seeing among businesses across the province,” he said. Annie Dormuth, Director of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business BC and Alberta.
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Dormuth said with B.C.’s labor shortage, many businesses are already short-staffed and aware of the effects spikes in cases can have on their workforce.
But he said if there was any change in the COVID-19 guidance in the other direction, toward more restrictions, businesses need to be consulted.
“Any kind of reintroduction or recommendation or stronger language from the provincial government needs to give companies time to change their business operations,” he said.
“And if there will be any kind of operational restrictions on the company that need to be followed up with supports.”
Meanwhile, the COVID-19 situation in the province appears to be trending positively, with the number of hospital cases hitting a one-month low on Thursday and hospital admissions showing a marked decline.
Public health officials are urging anyone who hasn’t received their first booster dose to sign up as soon as possible, while second boosters are recommended in the fall.
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