Province to receive half of the doses it expected due to pause in vaccine production

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One-third of BC Recovery Benefit applications flagged

If you're still waiting for your BC Recovery Benefit, don't hold your breath. The province admits one-third of those who have applied for it have had their applications flagged for review, and of those flagged, just 13% have been resolved. The Ministry of Finance says manual reviews are triggered for reasons including a change in marital status, errors on applications or the information provided does not match up with the information government has on file. The $500 dollar per individual or $1000 dollars per family benefit was an election promise that John Horgan said would be delivered in early January if not before Christmas. The Premier has offered little comfort to those still waiting for that promise to be delivered.

"Could we have done better? Of course we could but I'm convinced that most British Columbians, in fact 1.4 million of them, are pretty happy with the way the program rolled out."—Premier John Horgan.

The premier's statistics are not accurate. The Ministry of Finance says 1.4 million British Columbians have applied for the benefit, but 400,000 applications are under review and it has no idea when that backlog will be eliminated.

Province unclear how it will proceed with a gap in vaccine production

More details will be released this afternoon, about how the province will handle a reduction in shipments of the Pfizer vaccine. The vaccine maker says it is shutting down some of the lines in its plant in Belgium, to prepare it to manufacture more vaccine. The Minister of Health says BC will receive about half of the 50,000 doses it had expected this month and next. Adrian Dix says it is not clear how that will affect those who have received their first dose, and were expecting to receive their second dose in just over a month.

"So what it means for British Columbia is it will have some effect, some significant effect on this stage on the priority one groups and when they get their doses, so some of the issues before us, and no decisions have been made about this is, of course, is the 35-day gap and what this might mean for that."—Minister of Health Adrian Dix.

Dix and the provincial Health Officer, Dr. Bonnie Henry are expected to release more details about a revised vaccine roll-out plan this afternoon.

Park closed by City of Nanaimo for maintenance

The Beban Kinsmen Participark will be closed this week. Crews will be removing hazardous trees and invasive plants starting today until Friday. Participark was built in the 1970s as part of Ottawa's ParticipACTION program to motivate Canadians to exercise. Participark includes 12 exercise stations along a 2-kilometre trail circuit. This week's tree removal is the first step in a project that will see the old wooden workout stations replaced with a new circuit.