VANCOUVER -- Almost two months after B.C. introduced its "circuit breaker" against alarmingly high COVID-19 transmission, officials are preparing to relax some restrictions this week.
Premier John Horgan, provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry, Health Minister Adrian Dix and Jobs Minister Ravi Kahlon are announcing plans to "safely restart the province" at a news conference at 1 p.m. Tuesday. CTV News will be live-streaming the event.
Last week, Horgan teased that British Columbians can expect "that the circuit breaker will be over" after the May long weekend, but health officials declined to share any specific details in advance.
According to the government website, there are several province-wide restrictions that are only scheduled to remain in effect until midnight on Victoria Day, including the ban on indoor dining at bars and restaurants.
That measure, which was prompted by an increasing number of case clusters in those establishments, has posed a major challenge to the restaurant industry.
Despite the lack of clear reassurances from officials that indoor dining will be back in the same capacity that it was before the circuit breaker was introduced in March, some bars and restaurants are going ahead with preparations to reopen on Tuesday morning.
Jeff Guignard, executive director of the B.C. Alliance of Beverage Licensees, told CTV News that establishments have been in a "holding pattern" since the premier's announcement.
“Most of the industry is holding their breath right now," Guignard said. “They’re frustrated that he had a press conference last week that he didn’t give us the clarity we needed."
He acknowledged that restaurants might be forced to shut down again after Tuesday morning, should the government re-introduce amended versions of any of the circuit breaker restrictions, but said they are hoping for the best and need to be prepared to hit the ground running after a difficult spring.
“It just makes is really, really difficult to plan, right? Because it’s going to take us days to get up and running fully," Guignard added.
According to data shared at Henry's April 15 modelling presentation, restaurants and bars experienced the highest number of case clusters of any workplaces in the Vancouver Coastal Health region between February and March of this year. There were more than 150 cases confirmed in those settings during that time period, almost four times as many as there were in fitness studios and gyms.
B.C.'s ban on adult indoor fitness classes is also set to expire at midnight, along with the order allowing health authorities to close workplaces for a minimum of 10 days after incidents of on-site transmission that leave at least three employees sick.
Part of the circuit breaker also involved suspending B.C.'s plans to allow a limited number of indoor religious gatherings. That planned variance only applied to services between March 28 and May 13, however, and it's unclear whether Tuesday's announcement will bring good news for churches.
The travel restriction barring people from moving between three designated regions of the province will also expire on Tuesday, according to the government's website.
Hundreds of vehicles have been turned around at RCMP road blocks since the measure was introduced. That includes more than 100 vehicles that were forced to turn back between Thursday and Saturday. Authorities said two drivers were also charged over the weekend for allegedly failing to stop for police.
When the circuit breaker measures were introduced on March 29, COVID-19 case numbers were surging at an alarming rate. The province's rolling seven-day average reached an all-time high of 1,130 cases per day on April 12, but that number has been steadily declining for several weeks.
As of Friday, it had fallen to 438 per day – which is about as low as it dropped between the peaks of B.C.'s second and third waves of the pandemic.
Health officials have been tempering expectations about what to expect on Tuesday. Henry stressed last week that "nothing is going to be back to 100 per cent," and used the metaphor of a dimmer switch to describe the province's approach to relaxing the rules.
"It's going to be slowly but surely moving towards the light," she said.
There's also been no hint from the government that the ban on hosting friends and family members indoors, which has been off limits since November, will be lifted this week. Currently, B.C. residents are only allowed to gather outdoors in groups of 10 or fewer.
