As BC abandons its vaccine passport, a member of the provincial COVID-19 Modeling Team calls on businesses to encourage people to hide. Sally Otto, the group’s infectious disease modeler, who released her latest report Wednesday, said the mask mandate is the only pandemic measure that should remain in place for a while longer to protect vulnerable people from accessing basic services such as groceries. pharmacies and public transport. “I would really encourage businesses to upgrade their game and say, ‘Hi, we consider ourselves a basic service, so if you come to this pharmacy, if you come to this grocery store, we want masks for everyone.’ Said Otto, an evolutionary biologist at the University of BC. In effect today, the BC Vaccine card is no longer required for entry to non-core businesses and events, although individual businesses may still require the entry card. The move follows the abolition of the provincial mask order for indoor public spaces on March 12th. Otto supports the provision of a second or fourth vaccine for vulnerable populations, including those aged 70 and over, indigenous people 55 and older, and clinically extremely vulnerable individuals who are six months away from their third COVID vaccine. He said that the amplifiers should be offered in parallel with some kind of mask command. If cases and hospitalizations increase due to the Omicron BA.2 variant, he expects calls to order the mask to increase in the coming weeks. The latest report from the COVID-19 modeling team suggests that the growth rate of the Omicron BA.2 variant is almost four percent per day in BC. and doubles every 15 to 20 days. Otto noted that it is not as steep as the first Omicron wave, but said it is difficult to predict when the second Omicron wave will return. About 80 percent of all new cases are driven by the Omicron BA.2 variant, the group said in a report. The height of this wave will largely depend on immunity, he said. Just over 91 percent of adults are fully vaccinated, nearly 60 percent are boosted, and about 50 percent of the population is thought to have COVID-19. Otto said cases among the elderly, which are more consistently controlled, are starting to rise. “BA.1 is falling sharply from the top, but BA.2 is not falling at all – it is just rising … and will continue to do so in the near future.” Some jurisdictions, including South Africa, have seen a moderate BA.2 wave, while others, such as the United Kingdom, see similar levels of hospitalization as in the first Omicron wave, the report said. The exponential increase in a small number of COVID cases and hospitalizations is not a concern, “but now we are talking about larger numbers, and so doubling a large number is a problem and doubling the number of people in the hospital [would be] a problem, “Otto said. There were 329 people in the hospital in BC on Wednesday with COVID-19, including 37 in the intensive care unit. In Ontario, where the BA.2 variant wave started earlier, there was a wave of hospitalizations and cases – sewage samples indicate that the number of new daily cases now corresponds to the peaks of January. The increase is believed to be related to a change in people’s behavior, including staying without masks. Epidemiologist Dr. Peter Jüni, scientific director of the Ontario COVID-19 Scientific Advisory Board, said that people in Ontario should “disguise” themselves. Otto said a person who is vulnerable to a serious illness from COVID due to his or her age or medical condition and chooses to wear a mask has limited protection only if others are not covered indoors who may have been infected with COVID. . The daily pandemic report changed to a weekly report from Thursday. [email protected]
