Dr. Bonnie Henry contradicts Island Health chief medical officer

Daily News Update from CHLY 101.7FM

New in this update:

Storm knocks out hydro

High winds knocked out power to more than 100,00 hydro customers on Vancouver Island overnight. The hardest hit were on the south island. Fewer than 2000 customers are still without power in North Cowichan, Duncan and several gulf Islands, however, BC Hydro expects to have power restored to all by the end of the day.

Vaccination start for Cowichan Tribes

Members of the Cowichan Tribes who are over the age of 60 started receiving COVID-19 vaccines today. Six hundred doses of the Pfizer vaccine have been allocated to the community and vaccine clinics are planned for the rest of this week. Health officials decided to make the vaccine available to try to control a COVID-19 outbreak in the Cowichan Tribes that began on New Year's Day. Last week, Island Health's chief medical officer said there were no plans to divert vaccine to that outbreak. Today, BC's provincial health officer, Dr. Bonnie Henry contradicted that version of events.

"We never rejected calls. It was all part of the outbreak response. So this was one of the things that was discussed very early on in the operations centre that was set up initially in the outbreak and as vaccine became available we were able to look at where it could best be used so we are targeting it to seniors at risk in that community, where we know there is ongoing transmission."—Chief Provincial Health Officer Dr. Bonnie Henry.

The outbreak in the Cowichan Tribes is currently at 72 cases. So far, no one has had to be hospitalized. Most cases are in people between the ages of 20 to 30. Only six people over the age of 60 have contracted the virus so far.

Province-wide, more than 62,000 people have been vaccinated with their first dose of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine as of today. They are workers and residents at long term care homes along with essential visitors and hospital personnel who work in COVID-19 care wards and intensive care units.

YCD at 70% of it’s pre-pandemic air traffic

The CEO of the Nanaimo Airport Commission predicts business will not return to usual until 2024. Dave Devana says passenger counts hit an all time high of 500,000 in 2019, but he says those numbers plummeted by 96 per cent in April, after the pandemic was declared. He says the current numbers are 70% of what they were last January. Devana says the industry is predicting it will not return to pre-COVID-19 numbers until 2024 even if Canada completes its vaccine program by this fall.

“And while Canada may have everyone vaccinated by September, 2021, It's still going to be a world-wide issue. And so we just think that it's going to take a bit longer.”—Dave Devana, The CEO of the Nanaimo Airport Commission.

The Airport Commission is reporting a $1.4 million dollar loss in 2020, but it still plans to implement a five year $28 million dollar capital plan for improvements to the runway, taxiway and apron.