By Roy L Hales
Photo credit: Needle drop 2 by ZaldyImg via Flickr (CC BY SA. 2.0 License)
BC’s first COVID 19 vaccine
“As vaccines become available, they will become our first step to protect people who are most at risk from severe illness and from death. And to protect our health care system,” she said.
“We know that we will have limited amounts at first. So we won’t be able to broadly achieve what we’ve been calling community immunity, or herd immunity, right off the bat – but that will come.”
“Our first priority will be protecting those who are most at risk. We know that is our seniors and elders in our communities, and long term care homes in particular and in hospitals here is British Columbia.”
Dr Bonnie continued, “Once we have more vaccine available, we will be making it available to all of us in BC. and that is when we can get to the point of managing and controlling this pandemic.”
The supply of vaccines should increase by April and by the end of the year anyone in the province who wants a vaccine should be able to get it.
Looking from the Squirrel Cove Dock towards the Klahoose village, on Cortes Island. Photo by Roy L Hales.
Good news from the Klahoose village
There is good news from the Klahoose village, on Cortes Island, where Chief Kevin Peacey reports, “There are currently NO active cases of COVID here on the reserve. 3 cases are recovered. All symptomatic testing came back negative. This is a big relief. However we are not letting our guard down as we are not out of the woods just yet. We are still going to be on lockdown until December 7th. “Lockdown” includes the ability for our Emergency Operation Center (EOC) team being able to leave the reserve for essential or emergency purposes. Please respect our people. The last two days have been very disappointing. Look out for further updates and thanks again for those that have been supporting us. There is too many to name right now. Emote.”
Good News from Campbell River
Good news from Campbell River, where a staff member at Discovery Harbour long-term care home tested positive two weeks ago. Island Health declared that COVID outbreak over on Wednesday.
Not good news
However this morning’s news is not all good.
As Dr Bonnie Henry pointed out, “Many of our communities around this province are affected right now. Many of whom went through the first months of this pandemic without having any cases. Without having it touch close to home.”
The Island Health Dashboard shows 41 active cases in North Vancouver Island, as of yesterday. We do not know how many of these are in the Greater Campbell River Health Area, or the three other Health Areas in North Vancouver Island, let alone specific communities or islands.
As of 4:30 PM the British Columbia COVID 19 Dashboard states there were 277 active cases throughout Vancouver Island. Twelve of these are now in hospitals and four in critical care.