Dr. Jazz Atwal, Deputy Chief Provincial Health Officer, offered a short but impactful statement this week about changes that are coming in the public health response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

It was previously announced that as of March 15, masks will no longer be mandated in public settings and public health orders will be moving to public health recommendations. Now, additionally, Dr. Atwal introduced two other key changes that will be taking place and mark a turning point in treating COVID-19 as an endemic rather than pandemic disease. It’s important not to read this as COVID-19 being gone or over. Endemic means that the virus is still circulating and remains regularly found within the population.

First is that the province is removing the requirement for people who test positive for COVID-19 to self-isolate, although it remains a recommendation. Atwal stressed that staying home when ill with any virus is recommended to reduce the likelihood of spreading the illness. However, without a requirement to self-isolate from the provincial government, people in certain fields may find it necessary to go to work regardless of their health status.

Atwal addressed concerns over the elimination of self-isolation simultaneous with the lifting of the mask mandate by expressing that while we may see an increase in case numbers in the short term due to the increased contact, the province is not expecting another wave like we saw with the omicron variant. While they report that the strain on our healthcare system is declining, at this time there is still a strain and many healthcare workers are still redeployed to handle the needs of COVID-19 patients.

The second change is that the province will be ending its case investigations. This means that they will no longer be doing contact tracing when they receive a positive test result to determine the source of the infection or where it may have spread. As the community spread of the omicron variant was swift and broad, that information became less useful for both healthcare workers and the general public.