The wait may soon be over for B.C. families wanting to visit their loved ones in long term care.
That’s because Provincial health officer, Dr. Bonnie Henry, says B.C.’s COVID-19 case counts appear to be trending in a positive direction.
Monday’s 301 new cases were the lowest daily total since November 7th, a day before tough new restrictions were first placed on the Fraser Valley and Vancouver regions.
Dr. Henry says as the first doses of COVID-19 vaccines were administered to long-term care residents and staff in B.C., they were also dealing with outbreaks.
“It takes another two incubation periods before we get through that first phase of the outbreaks in some of the facilities and then after the second dose, we know that maximal protection is about seven days after dose two,” she explained during Monday’s COVID update.
“We are going to be watching very carefully because we know that some people are still getting sick with COVID-19 even after being immunized because they were exposed before the vaccine could have that protective effect. So yes, we are looking at the latter half of March but we are making plans on how we can get people together safely, as soon as we can in care homes.”
Meanwhile, Dr. Henry says the actions we take over the next few weeks will determine the future spread of the coronavirus and will determine whether some of the restrictions can be lifted in time for the Family Day long weekend in mid-February.
