Premier John Horgan rejects calls to tighten provincial borders

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Wednesday COVID-19 update

Vancouver Island is reporting one of the highest numbers of new COVID-19 cases in a 24 hour period. There are 45 new cases of the virus in the Island Health region, bringing our active case count to 220. Province-wide, there have been 485 new cases and four deaths.

Island Health's top doc is sounding the alarm. Dr. Richard Stanwick says the region has seen a spike in cases, with 500 this month alone. He says most are the result of gatherings during Christmas and New Year. But he says many others are the result of workers letting their guard down.

"The people you work with are not your household contacts. They are the people you work with so you need to practise the same sorts of physical distancing, making sure if you can't that you mask properly, you wash your hands regularly. You have to treat them as members of the general public and take those same measures because we have definitely seen workplace spread."
—Island Health Chief Medical Officer Dr. Richard Stanwick.

Stanwick says the health authority is stepping up workplace inspections, especially where there have been complaints. However, he says the goal is to educate businesses on compliance, rather than imposing fines or closures.

Premier cites differences between B.C. and Manitoba for not imposing a mandatory quarantine for interprovincial travelers

The Premier is rejecting calls to tighten up the BC border in the fight against COVID-19. John Horgan says he will not impose a mandatory quarantine for people travelling from other provinces, as Manitoba has done.

The differences between Manitoba and B.C. are obvious to most people, there are four roads into Manitoba and dozens of roads into B.C. We have major airports, there is but one major airport in Manitoba.
—Premier John Horgan.

The Premier says he would consider quarantine measures if the Provincial Health Officer advised him to do so. Instead, Horgan says visitors are expected to follow public health guidelines and orders from Dr. Bonnie Henry.

"If you are coming to BC on non-essential travel you better behave appropriately, you better follow our public health guidelines or we will come down on you like a ton of bricks."
—Premier John Horgan.

Horgan is not discouraging people from visiting BC. He says ski hills like Whistler are COVID-safe, but the danger comes from what people do off the slopes.

“It's when people leave the hill and look for the party that we're seeing transmission and that's where we are very concerned. And that's where Dr. Henry and Minister Dix are looking at what the consequences are of those that are coming from away as well as those quite frankly who are coming from downtown Vancouver, or the Island, or any other part of British Columbia looking for a party.”
—Premier John Horgan.

So far, the province has issued 650 tickets for violations of public health orders and 80 tickets related to the federal Quarantine Act.