Like business groups around B.C.’s Okanagan Valley, the Kelowna Chamber was watching Thursday to see when provincial officials might lift COVID-19 restrictions.
They got their answer: the mask mandate will end in most settings on Friday, but vaccine passports will remain in place till April 8.
“It’s not surprising. We’ve seen the narrative play out across the country. We are moving in a positive direction,” said Kelowna Chamber executive director Dan Rogers.
“Many of us were eager to see the removal of the proof of vaccine by the end of the month, but it will be shortly there after. At least business can plan and they know the timelines.”
The chamber believes relaxing the rules overall will be good for business.
“I think people are feeling more positive and this is another step in the right direction and that will bode well in the longer term,” said Rogers.
“We are going to be in this situation for a while and many businesses are going to take years to recover, particularly those that have been hardest hit.”
A Kelowna emergency physician, Dr. Jeff Eppler, feels the public is ready to drop mandatory masking in many spaces.
“I think the mask mandates really served a purpose but now I think people, after two years, are kind of tired,” said Eppler.
The next major step on April 8 will be dropping the vaccine passport.
Dr. Eppler says he’s also comfortable moving away from vaccine passports.
“My reading of the literature and my experiences at work convinced me vaccines work, but I know this has been a divisive issue,” Eppler said.
“Because we have fairly high rates of vaccination here and because we have herd immunity from both vaccination and from people that have gotten most recently Omicron, I think it is probably quite reasonable.”
There is optimism as B.C. gets ready to lift restrictions, but provincial officials are warning if COVID-19 conditions change, some public health tools may not be gone for good.