'Additional measures' may be coming to slow COVID spread in northern B.C., says Henry

Provincial Health Officer Dr. Bonnie Henry said she is considering placing additional restrictions on communities in northern B.C. where COVID-19 is spreading in an effort to reduce strain on health-care workers in the region.

So far, the province has had to transfer 55 critical care patients out of the Northern Health region to hospitals in the Lower Mainland and Vancouver Island in order to keep beds in the north free, said Health Minister Adrian Dix at a news conference Tuesday.

Of those 55, he said, 43 were COVID-19 positive and 42 were not fully vaccinated. Fourteen of the transfers occurred over the Thanksgiving long weekend and the province had to contract two private aircraft in order to keep up with demand.

"The situation ... is extremely serious," he said. "Our staff [in northern hospitals] are doing simply epic work."

According to data from the B.C. Centre for Disease Control, northern B.C. is recording new cases of COVID-19 at nearly four times the rate of other regions, while hospitalizations are more than double the provincial average. 

Henry said she has been monitoring the situation along with the leadership of Northern Health and said they are "very concerned" by the numbers, and the outcome.

"People are becoming severely ill, even young people, mostly unvaccinated younger people, and hospitals are pushed to the limit across the north."