Dear Accommodation Community & Stakeholders,
Today at 2.30pm, Adrian Dix, Minister of Health, and Dr. Bonnie Henry, BC’s provincial health officer, announced additional restrictions to the Central Okanagan region, with implementation of these measures across all of Interior Health. These measures will be put into affect tonight at midnight.
A full list of communities that are part of this authority can be found here.
Measures include:
- Masks mandatory in all indoor public spaces
- Indoor personal gatherings will be limited to one other household with 5 guests
- Outdoor personal gatherings will be limited to no more than 50 people with COVID safety plan in place
- Indoor organized gatherings limited to no more than 50 people with COVID safety plan in place
- High intensity indoor fitness classes suspended; indoor low-intensity group classes will be limited to 10; outdoor low-intensity group classes will be limited to 50
This news comes on the heels of a significant uptick in cases in the interior health region, particularly among those who are unvaccinated. While over 80% of people are fully immunized in BC, there is a substantial amount of people who are still unvaccinated. As a reminder, the single most important action we can all do to protect our industry, community, and ourselves is to receive both vaccine doses and encourage others to do the same.
Getting Vaccinated:
Please see below for information on where to get vaccinated:
What you can do:
Once again, we remind operators that in addition to encouraging those in our circle to receive the vaccine, it is important that operators take the following steps to mitigate the spread of COVID-19:
- Ensure that cleaning and sanitization protocols are being held to the highest standards
- That you encourage staff to stay home from work and receive a COVID-19 test should they be feeling ill
- That you continue to ensure your communicable disease plan is being followed
- Consider also ensuring that heightened safety measures (such as masks) are being implemented
We are acutely aware of how challenging this chapter has been and will continue to be on our operators within the interior, particularly as wildfires across the province continue to devastate our industry and its employees.
Please know, we are actively engaging government to ensure that the support so desperately needed is received. As always, we encourage anyone with questions to reach out to our team.
Kind regards,
Ingrid Jarrett
President and CEO
British Columbia Hotel Association
