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Opinion: While hoping COVID can be managed in the future much like the flu, it will remain dangerous for certain people, health officer says

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VICTORIA After two years and more than 250 pandemic media briefings, Dr. Bonnie Henry is still capable of shaking up the narrative.

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I absolutely recognize this is a shift, the provincial health office said Friday in laying out a self-management approach to dealing with the latest wave of COVID-19.

The Omicron variant spreads so quickly, contact tracing is no longer viable.The surge in cases means that testing has to be reserved for health care workers and those at high risk of serious illness.

That leaves the rest of us responsible for monitoring our own health and, if necessary, managing our own symptoms.

With the level of transmission in our communities, we all need to assume that we have been in contact with somebody with the virus, said Henry.So at this time, everyone, all of us, needs to routinely check ourselves every day. We absolutely need to pay attention to how we are feeling.

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As long as were feeling well, we can and must continue going to work, going to school, and socializing safety in our small groups.

If you have a fever, or even a mild illness like a sore throat or the sniffles, you need to stay at home and stay away from others, she said.If you feel better the next day, then you can go back to school or work or child care. This applies to children in daycare or in school as well as with adults.

However Henry said this does not mean public health officials have given up trying to contain Omicron and decided to let it rip, so to speak.

There is a narrative that we should just abandon all restrictions, we should not be doing anything, we should just let it go because its mild and who cares, she admitted.I do not subscribe to that narrative.

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Rather, with hospitals strained by COVID-19 cases and health care workers themselves booking off sick, she was trying to conserve scarce resources for those who need them most.

Its important to recognize that there are some people who are at higher risk, she said, citing those with compromised immune systems and those over the age of 70.

Granted, the new variant is not causing as much severe illness, particularly among the vaccinated and those whove had booster shots.

But it is not an innocuous illness, she emphasized. It is making people feel very unwell, some of them for a longer period of time.

As a measure of the stresses on the system, she was asked about a leaked memo from Fraser Health, saying that patients who are fully vaccinated but uninfected with the virus could find themselves in a hospital room alongside someone with COVID-19.

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It was about maximizing our ability to provide care maximizing the use of space if needed, with additional precautions in place, said Henry.

At that point Health Minister Adrian Dix weighed in to note that Fraser Health had been struggling with 500 COVID-19 cases in hospital and almost 2,500 health care workers booked off sick.

When you have a lot of people in the hospital, said Dix, you have to manage within the space you have and ensure that infection control stays high.

For some time, Henry has been saying that well have to learn to live with this virus as weve learned to manage annual outbreaks of the flu.

She was asked Friday whether the self-management regimen was her way of preparing British Columbians for how we are going to live with COVID-19 for the long term.

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At first she said no: I dont think that this is how were going to live with it in the long term.

But then she corrected herself, telling the reporter you are right, were preparing for how we live with this when we no longer have those restrictions that we have in place now.

What was happening now including the drive to increase vaccinations and boosters as the best protection against serious cases and hospitalizations is going to help prepare us for whatever comes next.

Because there will be something next, added Henry, lest anyone assume that Omicron is the end of the story.

Because of the amount of transmission weve seen and the amount of immunity that weve developed from vaccination and from the transmission of omicron, were probably going to have a much more gentle summer than weve had for the last two years. Then well have to prepare ourselves for whatever comes next in the fall.

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She hopes that future waves will unfold in smaller and smaller oscillations.

Hope is not a strategy, she conceded. But I do hope that we will end up with another coronavirus that causes mostly mild illness.

Even in that best case scenario, people who dont have as strong an immune system will still be at risk of having more severe illness.

We see that with other respiratory viruses that cause infections, she continued.Influenza being classic: People who are older, people who have immune-compromising conditions and the very young tend to be the most at risk, and I expect that that is likely to continue for some time.

In short, as Henry has said more than once over the past two years, there are no no-risk scenarios in the pandemic.

Nor, judging from Fridays briefing, is the end in sight.

vpalmer@postmedia.com

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Vaughn Palmer: Dr. Henry pivots to self-management of COVID, but hasn't given up the fight - Vancouver Sun