As B.C. faces 'twindemic' autumn, officials say COVID-19 restrictions unlikely – but not off the table

Having previously taken a bold stance against the idea of reinstating mask mandates and other pandemic public health measures, B.C.’s top doctor took a more cautious tone Tuesday while speaking at her first COVID-19 press briefing in months.

Dr. Bonnie Henry told reporters the coming respiratory season is on an uncertain trajectory, noting the possibility of new vaccine-evading variants emerging amid significant ongoing transmission around the world. She also pointed to the return of influenza in the southern hemisphere, raising concerns of what’s been called a “twindemic,” with COVID-19 and the flu hitting at the same time. 

She emphasized the health-care system, which is already “teetering,” must be protected and described it as a “worst-case scenario” if both viruses surge simultaneously as a double-whammy. 

CTV News asked Henry whether public health measures such as indoor mask mandates or vaccine passports are on the table and whether there was a certain number of deaths or hospitalizations due to COVID-19 that would trigger the resumption of public health orders.

“Transmission in the community, who's getting sick, who's getting hospitalized, the impact on health-care workers and the system, so it is a little bit of everything,” she replied, pointing out that vaccinations and previous infections have reduced the risk of serious illness for the vast majority of people.

“Making it a mandate, a legal requirement for people across the board to do something is a last resort tool we use very judiciously in public health,” Henry went on to say. “I don't see us getting there unless we have the emergence of something very new and different where we have that susceptibility (to serious illness) again.”

She emphasized the important of ventilation, staying home if feeling unwell, and hand hygiene as important measures to keep everyone healthy going forward. But she did not address concerns about repeated infections and long COVID due to multiple illnesses from the virus, which are a growing concern among frontline doctors and many epidemiologists. 

The virus has also changed in ways public health officials did not anticipate in the past, with the public testing system collapsing at the end of last year as Omicron infections surged and the health-care system staggered through that wave of illnesses.

Health-care workers continuing to walk off the job or burn out, the concerning levels of summer COVID-19 hospitalizations and infections at a time when respiratory viruses are usually less common, does not bode well for a fragile health-care system ill-prepared to handle a one-two punch of serious coronavirus and influenza cases, plus whatever else might be around the corner.