While he noted that fuel subsidy removal and its harsh condition was impacting and taking the toll on Nigerians, Bakery urged President Balaq to go to kill corruption and not Nigerians. Bakery also took a swipe at the continued detention of the suspended governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Mr. Godwin Emefile, and the chairman of the EFCC, Mr. Abdullah He described it as a clampdown on perceived political adversaries. Joining us to discuss this live is Ziko Nyaito. He is a former governorship candidate of the ABC in Akwaibong State, and also joining us is Mr. Sheru Gaba. He is the national chairman of the Social Democratic Party. It's so good to have you join us, gentlemen. Good evening. Good evening and thanks for having us. Thank you. Great pleasure. Great. Let me start with you, Mr. Gaba. It's interesting that Mr. Bakery, I mean, this is not the first time that we've seen Trindia Bakery speak on issues, national issues. He was the running mate of former President Muhammad Al-Buhari. He re-declared him very vocal under the Bahari administration without fear or favor. We're seeing him now in the early days of the Singapore administration, making his thoughts and his comments known.  Why do you think he decided to take this position? Well, let me thank you for inviting me to add value to this conversation. Part and foremost, I think he's quite right, based on the current situation that is going on in the country. We all supported the subsidy removal. The subsidy removal doesn't mean that you leave the market forces to determine the cost of oil that is likely to affect every sector of the economy from beginning to top. What happened was that the government removed the subsidy. But failed to take a decisive decision in controlling the market price of the product.  As I'm talking to yesterday, I bought a bag of maize at 65,000 Naira. That is incredible in the history of Nigeria, 65,000 Naira. You can price that. Actually, all the poultry industries have gone down because they cannot afford to buy maize to feed their small-scale industries that is keeping them alive. So the poverty level is beyond definition, is beyond explanation. Crime level is going extremely very high at the community level. You know, it's migrating to local government, to states, and then to the national level. Because the common denominator of an average ordinary person is to have cheap food that he can eat and take care of his family. It is unavoidable right now. You cannot afford it. You cannot deal with it. And therefore poverty is killing. So in that respect, he is absolutely right. The government have not created an incentive or palliative to cushion the effect. For instance, we disagree totally with the palliative and we talked about it. We told the government is the wrong step and the president retracted. We also offer advice that you need to buy or produce thousands of buses to reduce the cost of transportation. That is likely to reduce the high-scale poverty level that is ravaging the country. As I'm talking to you in some police stations in Abuja, they have locked up the station because of speculation that oil is likely to go up again. So in that respect, you cannot say he is wrong and you cannot say that he has no right to offer advice to the government. He has ever right as a citizen, as a stakeholder that has contested to run for president of Nigeria. He has been a running mate to a presidential candidate. He is an investor in the Nigerian system. So he is right to make those solid observations. And I believe the government should not start from a very hostile position from those who issue a very constructive advice for them to quickly adjust. They shouldn't have a very tough crisis from taking off. It is correct. It is right. The system is going down. The corruption is eating very badly. The insecurity is rising. They have to do something very urgently. And I hope they will not allow this oil increase to come up again because only God knows what is going to happen, based on what is going on right now. Let me continue saying that. I would like to quote Basel Tunde factory directly. He said that Singapore needs to mount a genuine fight against corruption, rise above Vendetta, foster reconciliation and give every Nigerian a reason to believe that we are in a united country. What could possibly be the reason why he would be talking about Vendetta here, again, every person who decided to run for president, in fact, I am talking about all across the board, every presidential candidate mostly talked about uniting the country. We saw what happened just before the elections. How the elections seemed to be more of an original election as opposed to somebody who wants to be president of Nigeria as opposed to president of regions. What do you think would make a battery talk about Vendetta? I mean, of course, you mentioned the issue of Abdul Rashid Bauer, the CBN governor, but that's just two instances. Is that enough to call the president out on the issue of Vendetta? Mr. Yes, are you there? Oh, dear. I think that we have lost that connection with Mr. I'm going to try again. Oh, I can hear you. Go ahead. Yes. Can you hear me? Okay. I think that we're having a problem with you. When we, I think it's okay. All right, go ahead. Oh, Mr. Davam, I think you just lost in there while we tried to get him back on. Well, for me, I think partly if you analyze the situation critically, you'll find a fault in the process. The chairman of EFCC was removed unceremoniously based on allegations of corruption. Some of the people he accused of corruption gung up and make their case, and eventually he was removed. And some of them that were accused were brought into the cabinet. Number two, for the central bank governor, of course, you are aware the report was just released in seven years, just before yesterday, which is a breach of the law, because the law of CBN said that every year, CBN must release the financial report. Now, it is very, very contradictory. It is, it is quite unbelievable that you run a country for eight years without releasing the financial report of central bank of Nigeria. So it's very complicated based on what happened in the past. And I believe a total investigation should be done because it's tantamount economic sabotage to a large scale. I believe that that committee that was set up to investigate the CBN should do their job thoroughly. But for the EFCC man, a lot of investigation needs to be done. And the government needs to be very transparent while they are keeping him in detention without explaining to Nigeria the crime he has committed. It is wrong. Like I said, the government was listening to constructive advice, was listening to a very strong constructive advice. Otherwise, it's going to be very complicated for the government because a lot of people are really tilting towards what in the back area have said. There was no justification to keep on detaining people without detailed explanation of what happened today. We run a very transparent system and the president only owns it as a duty to citizens of Nigeria to brief them about what is going on. You can't detain people like in the past without any explanation or why you keep on detaining them. They are entitled to, Nigeria are entitled to information to know what really happened, what led to the kind of scandal that we are going to at this elicit of the administration. Interesting. I think Mr. Yeshik is back. Mr. Yeshik, let me push you further from where Mr. Gavin stopped. Yes, Nigerians do have a right to this information. But then I remember vividly when the president was just the presidential candidate and he said that he would pick up from where his predecessor stopped. In other words, continue from where he stopped. Now going back to owing it to the people to let us know what's happening or not detaining people without any form of accountability, we have seen the Shiite leader and his wife have continued to be in detention. We've seen the case of Nandi Kano continued detention and several others who are still in detention. And here we are at the beginning of the Tiniwara administration, we're seeing a similar hand. Why are we surprised? Because again, there are people who expectedly had said that this was the first line of action that Mr. President was going to take and he didn't disappoint. Should we be worried? Okay, thanks for having me. I'm sorry that calls kept interrupting our network. And you know, when we have discussions like this, we either attack the fundamentals, or we just do all these analyses, intellectual analyses, and achieve absolutely nothing at the end of the day. I want to go back if you permit me to the beginning of your very first question, which has to do with corruption and subsidy. Incidentally, I made, I think it was a seven minute video and it was a direct address to Mr. President about a week ago. And I concluded by saying, if you are not willing to attack the fundamental, the basic, the foundational of this fuel corruption or this fuel crisis, which is one word, just one word corruption, because if you look at this issue of, you know, the subsidy, the very first thing that Mr. President would have done was to set up a high powered investigative panel, not announced strictly in house, the most thorough thing and give him a report. That report would tell him exactly what the problem is. It's on the basis of that analysis of the report that you would have made a statement. And that didn't need to take him, he didn't need to have that statement in his first address to the nation, because he did not have facts and data and statistics. And that is the proper way to run a government. He needed to give himself two weeks was enough for him to get as a president the information. And you ask one, two, three questions. Number one, is it rocket science for you to make sure that you're to you to know the real consumption? Because at the end of the day, I've always said from the beginning that our consumption is between 30 and 40 million liters per day. Maximum, I've always said that. In fact, more like 30, 35. But sometimes you get up to 75. Now, if you remove the excess 35, 40 million liters, will you have a problem with subsidy? That is number one. What is the real consumption? Now, where are the leakages? Is it difficult? My cars are tracked. As I'm sitting down here, I can tell you my cars where they are, the speed they are going. I mean, tracking is common knowledge. What is so difficult in tracking all our tankers to ensure that none of them goes across the border? I don't think that's difficult to do. Number two, as are today, what is our daily production of crude? What comes out of every oil well? Is that rocket science? I know what to do. And Mr. President knows what to do. So I don't need to tell him. When we address number one, the volume that we have, number two, the volume that we consume, the volume of crude that comes out, and then the volume of, let's say, petrol, for instance, that we consume, you discover that we will have more than enough. So I was one of those who said, remove subsidy. But that would have been for a period not exceeding three months. Within these three months, you will be able to know what the problems are, where the leakages are, where the corruption is. You block them, and then based on the real production quota and real consumption, you will discover that you can even bring down the value of petrol, because petrol is like the engine that runs our country, especially the poor. So for me, that issue is Mr. President is not willing to tackle corruption. He should just have his four years or even eight years and leave. I'm not interested in any other thing. The second thing that we look at, which you have brought up is the issue of rule of law. It's another fundamental. The issue is, to what extent is Mr. President willing to commit himself to obeying the rule of law? That is what will make him- Should we be asking that question now? It's not too late in the day to ask this question, because the moment you take that oath of office, I'm presuming, even if I were to say, I want to be the vice chancellor of a university, whatever it is that is in that oath that I take as an oath of office, I am bound by it. Should it be halfway into my tenure, then people ask me, are you going to help to build this school? Is that not my mandate? And that's why I'm asking the question. To be really asking that question now. Fantastic question.  And I started this not too long ago, but I've decided to give it full force now. And that is office of the citizen of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.  The president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria is my boy. Let me use that word in a way that could be offensive. He is my employee. I employ him. And the earlier we get to know that the office of the citizen is the highest office of the land, higher than the office of the president or the office of the governor, we have a right at any given point in time. Even if we made a mistake at the beginning, we must occupy that office and call him back to account and say, look, we're not going to take this. So I think that rather than appear helpless, we should tell ourselves that there is something we can do and must do to make sure that the rule of law is not jettisoned by whoever we put in office. Fantastic. Mr. Gabor, I'm coming back to you. Over the weekend, young people celebrated International Youth Day and for Nigeria. I think it's the wall bank, if I'm not mistaken, that put out a report that Nigerian young people might take over the world in two years. We might be the largest number of young people across the world. And we have a huge problem, which is unemployment. And we know what that is. And I don't mind the devil's workshop. But then those same groups of people are the ones that we are hoping would be able to hold our leaders to account. But when you have conversations with these people, there's a mentality of giving up. Many people are saying, well, there's nothing we can do. Let's just watch him do his dinner. How do we change that mindset? Because accountability is one thing. Making sure that people's feet are held to the fire is another, are we capable of doing that today? Well, globally, nonchalant attitudes are very dangerous to any society. Number two, let me a little bit, you know, reemphasize what my brother has said about the subsidy. First, some of us don't believe subsidy exists. It's a cattle of people, you know, that contain that subsidy because it was probed by the former Minister of Finance, Ngozi Wella, and it was found out that there was nothing that subsidy. And the former president, Buhari, have mentioned himself when he was campaigning with the president of Nigeria that there was nothing like subsidy. It was a fraud. He continued with that fraud up to the time he left office. And up till now there was no any publication of payment that had been made to the marketers in terms of subsidy. And in any case, it is the NNPC that is importing for us, you know, into the country and distribute it around. And therefore, my brother should know that every information, every detail that is needed have been tabulated before the president. I don't think the president is ignorant of this fact. The only thing is that there is lack of will to act on them and bring them to stop because the cattle, less than one person or one person, are the ones holding Nigeria to ramps. Number two, you mentioned the issue of the youth, you know, and what are we personally, I feel very sad because we look at currently in some strategic position. Some of those that are privileged to be there are very young people. In terms of age, in terms of efficacy, they are very young. But they have compromised the system. They have shown that they have that zeal, they have that sense of globalization, that sense of infrastructure, that sense of building an educational base, that sense of building a health sector base, you know, they are like, they are like, they're going into the cattle that are in government and doing nothing differently. They are not even speaking against the system that is doing something that is wrong. Meanwhile, I'm so sorry to talk over you, but do you not think that this is a, for the want of a better word, a mind rape that has continued to hold sway over the years that has doctored the mind of these people to say, well, this is the easy way out. No matter what you do, if you don't belong, then you cannot really make a change, even though when they get in there, of course, their hands are tied. I don't think so. You know, when you look at our peculiarities as a nation, the younger generations have everything it takes to change the status quo. If you look at the INEC records, you know, about 70 to 75 percent of registered voters are young people. So the young people can determine the fact of everybody in Nigeria, everybody in terms of votes, they need to commit themselves to a process that allowed them to change the government that they are not satisfied with. They need to disabuse themselves from being part of, you know, by vote buying, weaponization of poverty, and then purchasing their mindset for four years. Because if you look at the campaign sectors of the different presidential candidates, the drivers are the young people. Those who participate in engaging or promoting bad elections at the polling units are also young people. Now, you get worried, when can we get it right? If the bulk of those who decide the fate of Nigeria are young people by record, by statistics, and this same category of people are the ones suffering graduates from the university that have no job doing, even those that have not gone to school. In the civilized society where creativity is a priority, you can create almost 40 to 50 million jobs through four sectors. One, if you decide to train two to three or five million plumbers in Nigeria that are needed daily in households and buy the basic equipment they need to operate, you know, you can't even meet up the supply of over 200 million people. If you decide to train electricians of that level and buy the equipment that they need, it's the same thing. Financial sector is the same thing. Capital sector is the same thing. Partial industry is the same thing. So if there is a collaboration between the federal government and the state, believe me honestly, majority of them will be taken out of the street. And if you go into the agricultural sector, there's a partnership. You bring subsidy into the fertilizer. A backup fertilizer is 30,000 Naira. I have purchased it. I'm farming. I have a rice farm. I know what I'm telling you directly what it is. It's 30,000 Naira. Who can afford it and farm with 30,000 Naira per batch? It is not true. It is not reliable. It is not possible. We are running into anarchy, into hunger in a country where we are suffering from massive insecurity that have borne a lot of farms, a lot of food and we are trying to recover from it.  You want it's very Liverpool. It's not that, again, you don't know what to do. But then why is it that when people occupy that city, it becomes a tad bit, if not a bigger problem of making these things happen. Just as Mr Davam said, Mr President has this information. It's on this table. Why is it very difficult for it to be done? Again, finally, because I have just three minutes. How do we make sure that we hold the president accountable? How do we make sure? Because we keep talking about it. Mr Davam, just in a few words, so that we can have these things. Very simple. Nigerians should learn to vote career people in politics. There's a difference between contractors who join politics and career people who have developed their career in politics and have the wish to take position. They are our decisive utilization of power during our career regime. Now you have contractors in government, contractors in the military regime. They have the career potential. Okay, let me say I took a graph up because we're almost out of time. I'll tell you the contradiction that we have and one that we must address easily. Nigeria, look at the bad images, the good images. The young people have given Nigeria the good image that we have. Go into music when they win the Grammys. The whole world hails us. They are young people. Go into sports. They are Muslim. What is just done? Go into soccer. Look at what our girls have just done. The last match against England. Go into fashion. Go into whatsoever is given even in the tech. Whatever is given Nigeria, the good image today is the young people. And these are the same people that are not supported. None of these people is supported by state is their personal effort. If Mr. President, yesterday I was with some part of his back room and I told him for whatever is worth, please pay attention to the young people. They are now like they need a direction. Let us come and use office of the citizen to override the president in a sense. Oh, Mr. Yatuk, I'm so sorry, I think that... But what we want him to do, and we can do that, if we do that, we start to have the young people that are giving direction and wings to fly. Well, right on time. I want to say thank you. Is it going to be a former government candidate for the ABC in Aquitaine State? Shame of Gavin is the national chairman of the Social Democratic Party here in the country. Thank you so much, gentlemen. Hopefully we can have another part of this conversation soon. Great pleasure. Thank you. Thank you for having us. All right, we'll take a quick break and return a group of democracy network Nigeria. They are advocating for continuous voter registration in the country. The first of what INIC is doing. Stay with us. They'll be here to talk with us.


4 p.m. Hawai'i Standard Time, and that means that it's time for working together on Big Tech Hawai'i. I'm your host, Cheryl Crozier-Garcia, and in this show we talk about the changing face of business and work. And today we're particularly lucky to have with us three of Hawai'i's most promising young entrepreneurs, all of whom are involved in businesses that rely upon the environment. So I'd like to introduce these environmental entrepreneurs to you right now. We have Jason Otero and Jason Fieldman from Hukua Beach Supply, and Matthew Yetter from O'Dang Farms. And if you have questions for them, or for me, or regarding any aspect of the show, you can call in at area code<PHONE_NUMBER>, and we will be able to hear you here in the studio. You can also feel free to tweet us on at Think Tech Hawai'i, or you can join us on our Facebook page, Think Tech Hawai'i as well. So guys, thank you so, so, so, so, so much for joining us. I'd like to start by asking each of you why you were so committed to a career as an entrepreneur first, and then secondly, why the business that you're in right now. So Jason, why don't we start with you? Sure. Well, thanks for having us, Cheryl. I really appreciate it. I've been an entrepreneur since 2000, so I started my first business in 2000 in Denver, and I think since the time that I started college, I knew that I wanted to do this for myself. I can't really think back to a time where I said, well, I really want to work for somebody else. I don't have a model for entrepreneurialism in my family, so I'm sort of the first one out of the gate to do this. And since 2000, I've been starting businesses. The longest I've had is art and anthropology, which is my design business, and I've had that for roughly 17 years. And my newest business with Jason is Hukui Beach Supply. Jason, what about you? Yeah, so, you know, I spent a lot of time in the Army, and I spent a lot of time working for the government, and I came to a point where I said, you know, I want to create my own path. I want to use my experiences in life and professional work, and then also, you know, some hobby as well, and something that I really enjoy. So when I met up with Jason, we came up with a great idea. That's something that would have a great impact on our local community and the environment as well. So we created Hukui Beach Supply for many reasons, but it was a great opportunity for us to, you know, expand on our businesses. I sell real estate as well with Waii Life, who I have real estate brokers. So for us, it was something to start together and, you know, build upon what we've already created in the past and use both our, you know, strengths to build on. Okay. Matthew, what about you? Actually, kind of ditto to an extent. But most of my income's from my parents. I grew up on a farm originally from the Midwest in Oklahoma. So you kind of grow up with that hardship of seeing the struggle that goes on with that, with the weather changes, with the difficulties of the seasons, with life itself requiring what it does of you. And then found myself in the manner of corporate jobs and then several years in the Marine Corps. And at this point, after finishing up additional education here with Hawaii Pacific University, I just really wanted to find my own path and had the luxury, I guess you would say, of having some parents who are already branching out in that way. So here in the future with O'Dang Farm, I would like to generate a Hawaii branch with O'Dang Farm, honey. Both of your business ventures require a very solid physical environment. In your case, for the two Jason's, you need beautiful beaches, clean water and well-tended reefs and sea life in order to provide the bait for your customers. For Matthew, people are so largely disconnected from the sources of their food, so that bees, we mostly think of them as those things that everybody's afraid of getting stung by, rather than as not only producers of delicious honey, but also as the people who, the people, yes, the people who fertilize most of our food crops without bees, we wouldn't be eating food, basically. So I've got to ask you guys, and I want to start with Jason Fieldman. How important is it for young entrepreneurs, particularly those who are interested in the physical environment and doing something that capitalizes on what Hawaii has to offer environmentally, how important is it that we work to protect our environment, things like climate change and pollution in a general way, over development, over fishing, over beaching, all of those kinds of things. How important is that to keep your business a going concern? It's very important. So I know for us, for instance, when we say, for instance, we're on the west side of Oahu and we go to certain beaches, we can see firsthand when there's a lot of pollution going on, whether it's something that's dumping into the water and you can see it physically or stuff that's washing up on the shores, so for us, you know, and we like to educate our guests on that as well. I think that's key. I think more people these days are more cognizant of the different environmental issues, not necessarily more on a global stand, but not necessarily in Hawaii, and I know for when Jason and I take people on private tours, we ensure to add that in there so people understand what's going on here. That way, you know, when they see stuff, they can understand what they're looking at, and it gives them a sense of place as well. Have you ever had opportunity, well, two questions. First, have you ever had opportunity to tell your customers about the huge plastic continent that is growing sort of out in the Pacific doldrums? That's my first question. And secondly, we've heard a lot about detritus from the Fukushima tidal wave and earthquake washing up onto beaches in California and other places. Have you observed, both of you, have you observed any of that kind of flotsam coming up onto our beaches that you can clearly trace to, say, Japan because of the labeling or whatever? In regards to the gyre, I don't think we can trace it directly, but like Jason said, when you go out to the beach and you prepare for a stand-up paddleboard tour or snorkel, you can see what washes up. It's evident. And so it's one of those things where, in many ways, I wouldn't say we're lucky, but we get the benefit of seeing it firsthand physically. And it does open up a conversation about how does that get there? How do we relieve it? How do we mitigate that from happening further? So it does give us an opportunity to start to address that question. I think we're in a unique spot because tourists tend to come here because they want to escape reality to a certain extent. And so our goal is to try to balance the reality of the situation with also entertaining their desire to escape. And so it's a careful balance. And I think we want to educate but not burden. And I think that we're in the first year and a half of our business and that conversation will continue to go on and grow as we continue to grow the business. How do you balance between overburdening someone with bummering somebody's mellow when they're on a tour like this? When you see things like plastic six-pack rings washing up on shore or seeing, perhaps, sea creatures that have ingested things or have things wrapped around their bodies, how do you walk the line between burden and education? Well, you know, I think when somebody gets on top of a mountain and they have 250 feet of elevation and they're looking over a beautiful coastline, that kind of takes that away a little bit.  And we were on paddleboards. But then you saw there was a rope wrapped around dorsal fin with a dolphin. So it's extremely sad to see that.  But I think people, you know, because they're overwhelmed with the beauty and overwhelmed with the views that they can absorb both at the same time and not be depressed or make it depressing. So in the case when you saw that dolphin with the rope wrapped around his fin or hers, were your, were your, was your tour group upset or did it spawn discussion? Did you, did you hear anything that gave you hope for the future? Yeah, well, you know, on the way out there, I said, and we always do this is I always pick up plastic bags. That's the biggest thing you can see everywhere.  And I always pick it up and I tie it to my board.  I'm like, well, I'm cleaning up. And that's what, so I always tell them, if you can grab something, knowing that they're a lot of times beginners, right, they might be able to or calling the overall help. And then so what yeah, I did, they were able to see that the sum of the change and see that we do have issues with, you know, with litter in the water and it affecting marine animals. So it did, it did spark up a conversation. And then, you know, they want to know if that's ever happened before. Have you seen stuff like that before? And we explained that that was a conversation that went into our plastic bags. So now we tell them that you can't, you have to purchase them now they're biodegradable and it's different. And so it went into that conversation. Yeah. And then people are more willing to grouse less that they have to pay 50 cents for a bag or bring their own or whatever it is. And they and they're cool with that. They are once they figure out why and they see it, you know, first hand, it definitely is the aha moment. It's an ongoing conversation too. So the education always has to happen. And so, you know, one of the things we're trying to do is talk about a visit to the islands as an exercise and reciprocity.  So we're working on the potential of ecotourists that allow, you know, our guests to enjoy the island, but also give back in some way with their time, either by helping clean up the beach, or doing a trail hike where they clean up after themselves. So there are a number of ways that we're trying to, you know, build that into our education components. So it's not a burden, but rather something that's exciting and something you want to participate in. Well, that's good. Because I have to say, I learned to swim at Pokai Bay. And it does not look now the way it did in the early Jurassic period when I learned to swim. So and the changes have been, well, sad in terms of there used to be beautiful reefs, not too far. I mean, kids, six year old kids could snorkel out to the reefs and see them see the fish. And now not so much. You have to go much further out to see what you used to see almost literally right up at the low tide line. And that's sad, because it means not only do I get to see what I saw when I was a kid, but my children, nieces and nephews, your kids, you've all got kids. At the age when I was looking at that stuff at age six, yours have to wait a couple years till they're old enough, and strong enough swimmers to actually get to the places where the reefs are. So that's kind of an issue. And now let's jump to land based animals. And probably one of the nicest land based animals we know, Matthew, and bees. You know, people look at bees, a bee is the one insect that will stop traffic. Have you noticed that? There's one bee and it goes, Oh, bee, don't sting me. And we're more afraid of the sting than we are of losing what bees provide to our ecosystem. So just briefly, if you could tell us why bees are important to those of us who like to eat food? Well, you know, I have the luxury and what I'm doing to have an animated movie with Jerry Seinfeld to assist me. Yeah, the bee movie. And I think that educated more than I think people will probably even give it credit. The easiest way for me to actually get my own family excited, my son, most specifically, who's six, was to watch that movie, which directly explains the impacts of bees in, you know, a comedic and yet entertaining way, yet educational at the same time, if you look at it in that manner. Yeah. I think yes. Let's continue the story of six year old kids and bees. Right after we do a little bit of business for the channel. So once again, this is working together on Think Tech Hawaii, we're going to do some business. Don't go away, we'll be back in just a couple of minutes after we share with you some of the other great programming that we have to offer. Aloha, my name is Justine Espiritu and I co host Hawaii Farmers series with Matthew Johnson of Oahu Fresh. We talk about Hawaii's local farmers and their supporters. In order to have a vibrant and sustainable local food system. Farmers are always the foundation, but there's so many other people involved in the community that help support those farmers. So we bring those folks onto our show every Thursday at 4pm. We get their backstory, their history, find out a little more about them, and we find out why they love what they do and their perspective and their advice on how we can continue to have a dynamic and vibrant and sustainable local food system. So we again, we broadcast live every Thursday at 4pm. And you can also catch us on Think Tech's YouTube channel, as well as Alelo 54. So we hope you tune in and join us. Welcome back. This is working together on Think Tech Hawaii. I'm your host, Cheryl Crozier Garcia, and we are joined today by three young entrepreneurs who are focusing on the environment and doing well for their businesses by doing good for the ecosystem. Matthew Yetter is a soon to be beekeeper who is interested in doing a business that would provide organic honey to the Hawaii market as well as any other markets that he can produce for. Before the break, Matthew, we were talking about Bee Movie and how that provided some education about why bees are important to any ecosystem. And you mentioned that it was particularly educational for your son. He's six now, right? So you've got a six-year-old, Jason, you've got a six-year-old, and you've got a six-year-old. What were you doing? No. That was a busy year. Yeah, I should say. Busy bees. That's right. Busy bees. How are all of you working with not only your children, but also with other kids that you may come in contact with their classmates, say, or Sunday school participants, etc. What do you do to assist them in understanding that it is important for us to respect the physical environment in the same way that we would respect any other loved one in our families? Because face it, without a clean environment, there is no family. So how do we communicate that to kids? And I ask you that from the perspective of fathers, because I think that that's the best place to get started in the relationship the parents have with their children, and how they begin to teach those kids about what respect and dignity mean, not only in how they treat the two-legged animals in their lives, but also how they treat the four-legged and the six-legged and the eight-legged, and the trees and the plants and the no-leggeds. So Matthew, let me let me start with you. How do you how do you work that into the parenting that you do for your son? For me personally, I'm very blessed to have a young man who has the energy of a six-year-old, as most do, and greatly adores the outdoors. And we are blessed to live in such a beautiful place as Hawaii, where even the most downpour torrential of rains that doesn't stop you necessarily from hitting a good hike, and just knowing you see an even more full waterfall at the end. And surprisingly, it's easier than I think even I believe that it would be in something like picking up a piece of garbage on a trail to the next time we hike, my son's lugging out trash bags and can't wait to pick up garbage, and he's almost as excited about that as he is about getting to the waterfall at the end. I think it's continuing to show the importance of that in something like what I want to do with bees, the full environment is involved, everyone is affected, and continuing to reiterate that to my son and keep him involved, I think is the most important way, and through my own personal actions. If I'm not willing to bend down and pick up the trash on the trail, how do I possibly expect my son to want to do the same? So you're modeling the behavior that you expect him to carry forth when you're not around. Exactly. Jason, how about you? You've got a son, did you say? Two. We've got a six-year-old and a four-year-old son. You have been busy. OK, so two boys. And how do you model that behavior for them? You know, that's a really big onion to unpeel, because Hukua Beach Supply is actually part of a longer-term life strategy for my wife and about living intentionally. And so one of the things that we wanted to do is, you know, we talked about modeling behavior. We wanted to live a life where we are, we intended to do the things we wanted to do with it. And that's, that's good or bad. So, you know, we moved here as part of an intention to live a life where we could enjoy it more, be outside more. And, and so Hukua, for us, was a way of showing our sons how to go for what you want, you know, and to integrate at every lot part of your life intentional planning and thinking and design. So, so how that works on a day-to-day level is our sons are out, our kids are together all the time. We go out to the beach, they're out there with us, we're constantly talking to them about wasting the water and the need to pick it up, even if they didn't put it there. Because I think for a child, it's really hard to think about themselves, outside of themselves. And so, we try to show them that, you know, even though you didn't litter, it's really good to pick that up for the benefit of everyone.  So, you know, and we involve them, my sons are involved in we deliver our beach, they're there with me sometimes, and they're part of that entire transaction. So, you know, they're, we really didn't want to create a filter between what we do with our lives as entrepreneurs and parents and what they're doing as our children. We want them to see that at every level, you know, this business impacts us and impacts our guests. Yeah. Now, Ava is six. Does she go out with you on tours and things too? Yeah, well, not necessarily on tours. But more, when we go out to the beach, like Saipokai Bay or we're out in Hawaii Kai, Ava's the same way. She loves to pick up trash. And she sees that bike because that's my passion as well.  Let's get that daddy. So, again, I think living by an example and also just educating your kids. But I will say now, compared to when we were kids, the school does such a great job, especially here in Hawaii, is that they, you know, talk about reusing, they talk about reducing and recycling.  Which was funny. It was cute. But they're using rhymes to get attention. And then she's like, they shouldn't be doing that. That's bad, right, daddy? Like, yeah, that's bad. I said, you know, we'll pick that up. And then so I think it's when it's reinforced at school, it's reinforced at home. And then, you know, you'll see it on TV as well. And then I think it's just going to be, it's one of those things that will be second nature, I'm hoping, with the new generation. And I think, you know, we have that responsibility. Yeah, I think it's important. We see YouTube videos of turtles that have straws up their noses and they're heartbreaking. And I don't think anyone intentionally said, hey, let's throw this straw in the water so a turtle can get it up their nose. But I think we are thoughtless about our cousins who live in the ocean or who fly in the sky, or who don't walk on two legs, that we need to be creating an environment that is safe and clean for them, just like it's safe and clean for us. So these issues, I think, become very important, and particularly in Hawaii, because the tourist industry, which you both are involved with now, and Matthew, you probably will too, as you try to sell Hawaii honey to people from other places, right? Definitely. We have been using our environment as tourist bait for centuries, really. And so how do we maintain that tourist bait in its tastiest and most inviting form to make people come back? And that's hard to do when 80% of the arable land within the state of Hawaii is on the island of Oahu, and that's also where 80% of the people live. So you have your choice. You obviously, well, I don't say obviously, but you probably can't grow crops on the same piece of property where you have a house. And people that are drinking water deprive, say, animals and plants from drinking water, that we all require water. So how do we deal with those issues going forward, I think, is a very important aspect that you all can have a great role in telling that story. Now, I also want to touch kind of briefly on the, without getting into politics, the issue of climate change, because it's obviously something that not whether or not it exists. Okay, we're not going there. But how important is it to your respective business ventures to have a relatively predictable climate? So how important is it? Well, I mean, for us, it's hugely important.  And if you look at the reefs and how they're dwindling, and I know that they say the bleaching is kind of a natural cycle.  But I do feel like the more vibrant our reef structures are, the more vibrant our sea life is, the better it is for tourism. So it's in our best interest, just as from a financial perspective to just make sure that we mitigate any any more harm. Matthew, how about you? How important is it that bees find flowers? Yeah, obviously, it's the most important part, right? Pollination and food source for them. But whether changes and any environmental change can directly affect your local crops or growth of any kind, whether it be your fish populations to your your trees, their growth, their health, and that directly impacts anything that relies on those such as bees. But of course, increasing that bee population also assists in maintaining and increasing that growth at the same time. So in some ways, obviously they they're directly impactful on each other, I believe, which is obviously one of the main factors and the importance of maintaining something like a bee farm in Hawaii to keep that fauna to keep our land growing as strongly as possible. And hopefully that will assist in healing our lands as we move forward. You know, the thing I noticed that's different between honey that you can get, say here, that's produced locally by local bees and harvested by local bee keepers. And then honey that you might buy in the supermarket that came from elsewhere is that with Hawaii honey, you can literally taste what the bees were tasting. You are what you eat, right? Yeah, I've got to assume it's the same for a bee. Well, because I've had honey that was farmed from bees whose primary source of food was guava and you could taste the guava in the honey. Same thing with bees that had been feeding primarily on mango. You taste the mango in the honey and I can't say that I've experienced that with honey from other places in the U.S. or in other parts of the world. So I think that also creates a situation where we need to be sure that we're protecting not only organic crops, but also shall we say, wild plant life as well. That's my way.  Well, yeah, there's nothing worse than tasting a guava that is not right inside. It's nasty. And I would imagine that honey made from guava that is not right inside is equally as unfortunate. So, yeah, pretty terrible stuff. And I think our challenge, too, I think it's taking that same idea and applying it to Starbucks is you are where you swim. You are where you hike. And so I think that, you know, we just have to constantly remind people that the same the same holds true for us, that if you are swimming in that same place like Pokai Bay and you see that those that those bays are getting, you know, are deteriorating, that there's runoff into the I mean, that's that's only not going to affect you for so long. Yeah, so I think we have to it's ongoing, consistent education in order to get people just to to mine the gap between mine. The gap like you're in England. Yeah. Now, and I'm sorry, that's a terrible place to end, but it's a great place to end because our time is running out. So gentlemen, thank you so much for joining us. Matthew Yetter, Jason Fieldman and Jason Otero. I'm Cheryl Kerzer Garcia. Thank you for joining us on Working Together. And we hope to see you in two weeks. Same bat time, same bat channel. So take care, everybody.


Good afternoon, my name is Adrienne Dix, I'm BC's Minister of Health, my right is Dr Bonnie Henry, BC's Provincial Health Officer. This is our COVID-19 briefing for Tuesday, January 4th. It's our honor to be here on the territories of the Musqueam, the Sqwamish, of the Slewa Tooth First Nations. Honored to be here today on their lands and with that, it's my honor to introduce Dr Bonnie Henry. Thank you very much and good afternoon. Today is our latest update on our province's COVID-19 pandemic response. This is our first briefing of the new year. Let's hope it will be the last time that we start off a new year focused on COVID-19. As you know, the virus has changed and is spreading rapidly. The Omicron strain that has now taken over the last couple of months here in British Columbia means that we are in a different race, in a different storm now. The Omicron variant of concern has taken over the Delta variant and is now the cause of over 80% of the new cases that we're seeing across British Columbia. It varies slightly in the north where it's not quite that high yet, but the data that's posted on the site is very clear that this has been a variant that has been dramatically different and is spreading in a different way and those pieces of the puzzle that I talked about a number of weeks ago are starting to come together. It also means that we need to respond slightly differently to this new strain that we're seeing. While we are seeing the rates of hospitalizations and those cases, it's no longer the case that we have three or four degrees of separation, that you know somebody who knows somebody may be that might have contracted the virus. The rate of transmission that we're seeing now in British Columbia, like many other jurisdictions around the world, means that at this point, most people in BC likely have a friend or a family member or a friend or a family member. Right now, in the tug of war of transmission, Omicron has the advantage and we see that in rapidly increasing case numbers we're seeing here and that we're seeing around the world. For now, in British Columbia, we have taken measures to try and slow that down and we are coping, but everything we do now makes a difference. Everything we've done up until now is the same. So many people in BC are vaccinated, are getting our booster shots and using those many layers of protection from keeping distances, wearing masks, staying home if we're feeling unwell, this is the right thing to do and this is what will get us through this phase as well. It means a lot of people will get sick and we are seeing that now. But your vaccine will protect most people from COVID-19 and we need to make sure we continue to do those other measures as well. We still have further challenges ahead and they're going to be slightly different challenges now. We know that some of the things that we did all along that made a difference with the strains we've been dealing with are no longer that useful right now. In particular, because we have that condition, the transmission is happening much more rapidly and we have a disease that is much more undifferentiated. It means a lot of people have milder upper respiratory symptoms that could be very similar, at least early on, to cold or to influenza. That means that things like case and contact tracing are no longer reactionary measures that are able to work to help us contain this. We have to be proactive in how we prevent ourselves from getting sick, but also how we prevent transmission to others. And our challenge across the board in the next few weeks will be dealing with high numbers of people who are off ill. And that may mean off work or out of school. It means out of healthcare workers and educators who aren't able to go to work because they're ill. And for most of us, they are ill because of our vaccinations. That will be a mild illness, but the interruption to our business continuity is something we need to think more carefully about. And today I want to speak to businesses in British Columbia. Given this rate of transmission, the short incubation period and the high number of people who are getting ill, we need now all businesses to put contingency restrictions on those who are off ill. At this point, given the number of people getting sick every day, we need to reactivate those COVID-19 safety plans. Those were the layers of protection specific to your business that allowed you to operate safely. We need to anticipate that as many as a third of your workforce at any one time may become ill with COVID-19. And they may not be able to come back to you, whether you are a private company, a school, a front-line business or a healthcare site, now is the time that we have to prepare. It is not about public health orders and us telling you what to do. This is about activating all of those layers of protection available for your business in your situation to keep you from having to shut down because you don't have enough people to operate. So what do we need to do? We need to do just one thing. It is not about a rapid test. It is not about a mask that keeps one safe. It is about doing everything we can, all of us taking these measures to protect employees, our customers and our family and friends. Every layer of protection is not 100% effective. It is putting these pieces together that gives us the protection that we need to keep operating. We need to do to prepare anyone who can work from home. You should be able to do that. Give employees and customers the space they need to stay safe. Remind and reinforce the need to keep that distance from people. Have fewer people in the same location at once, whether you can stagger shifts, stagger start times and breaks, making sure that staff are not all eating lunch in a small, unventilated room together, using those barriers, plexiglass barriers, limiting the numbers of customers in the space at any one time.  And, of course, vaccine requirements. These are important. We know they are in place in many employment opportunities, but requiring them to declare their status so you understand the risk in your employees. And while vaccine right now won't stop all of us from getting infected with Omicron, it does significantly reduce the likelihood that we are going to have severe illness and be off for longer. It means that we can come back after that shorter five-day isolation period. And it means that long-term recovery is the risk of having long-term symptoms is reduced. And I think our schools are also doing a staggered start. And this is again, we know that schools are safe. They are the best and safest place for our children and they are essential. They are essential for their social and emotional development as well as intellectual development. And it is not because we have any concerns about that. It is because as we have watched what is happening with Omicron and how it is happening with Omicron, it is essential specifically to take stock and prepare plans to safely operate over the coming months with the potential for reduced staff and keeping children safely in school and reducing the risk of functional closures because of staff illness. It is essential that we keep our schools open for children just as we have kept grocery stores and pharmacies and hospitals open. This is going to be and remains our responsibility from everyone. From administrators and staff and teachers and parents and of course kids too. If your children are higher risk, it may mean things like pausing extracurricular activities to focus on school and the importance of school. Thankfully, we know that COVID-19 remains and even with the Omicron variant, it remains mild in most children. And we know that with the availability of vaccines, it reduces the risk dramatically more for children and for staff. Everybody in schools should be vaccinated and vaccines are the best protection for all of us. So while schools are most definitely a reflection and extension of our communities, they have not and we have seen this consistently and there is no reason to think it will be different now. They are not a major source of transmission. And schools, the measures that we have in place and adding in, going forward, some of the ones that we were using early on means that they are an important place to keep open for all students starting next week. As I said, this remains our highest priority and I know the highest priority of the tens of thousands of school staff, teachers, educators and parents and principals and the school district staff across the province and we are committed to making sure that we are getting children back as soon as possible and doing our best for our children across the province. And part of, of course, one of the important things that we have in schools is that we wear masks when we are in the classrooms, when we are in the school settings and I remind everybody that the best mask is the one that you wear, the one that you wear properly and consistently. And a good-fitting mask with three layers is equally protective if it is the one that you wear. Remember that the mask alone, of course, is not your only protection. You need to use all of these layers, including vaccination, keeping your distance, including minimizing the time that you are in a crowded indoor space, particularly if the ventilation is poor. I know some people have called for the increased use of respirators or N95s routinely and I will just say in the majority of settings, the retail store is minimal. What is most important is that you have a good-fitting mask that you wear and you wear appropriately. The other important thing, of course, is as much as possible if you are feeling unwell, to stay home and stay away from others until it resolves. Don't go to gatherings, no matter how small. And testing is, of course, important. We now, as you know, are at our limit of our PCR testing and we are looking to make sure we have that available for people who wear that test is important because they have underlying risk factors and may be eligible for treatments. So those are things that are really important right now and we are using the rapid antigen test that we have to be able to supplement that for people who have symptoms and are lower risk. I also want to say that I am looking at other areas in our community to make sure we have the best approach we can and physical activity, as I know, is incredibly important for our mental and physical well-being. And I want to thank those who operate gyms and fitness and dance studios for quickly supporting your communities by moving online during this period of high transmission in our communities. I know that this is incredibly important. At this point, team sports for youth and adults, we are trying to make it clear that no one, no matter your age, should be traveling for tournaments and I know there are some leagues that are trying to get around this by scheduling multiple games. This is not about trying to get around or skirt the rules. It's about taking measures that we need to be able to keep providing some of these activities and reducing the risk that we are going to be bringing this home with us, bringing Omicron to the sport guidelines, staying in your local sports areas, and I recognize this isn't exact, but we will do it, work with each of the sports and make sure that you know what the rules are. And I encourage you all to default to less, not more, during this risk period. Finally, on Friday, we made some, given the challenges and staffing that I heard about from our long-term care sector, particularly as we were going into this long weekend past, the instituted restrictions to essential visitors only over this past weekend. And the tent was always that once we got the rapid testing available and had more plans in place to support staffing that we would transition to one designated social visitor per resident in addition to essential visitors. I know and I know that there are seniors and elders in long-term care have been hardest hit by this pandemic. And we also know how essential having those social supports of visitors is. And we are committed to making sure we can get back to having your one designated social visitor as well as essential visitors as the rapid antigen testing is being rolled out across long-term care homes and as staffing allows in this coming week. This will be in place this week as these are being distributed to long-term care homes and every care home develops their plan to support this. A year ago we faced challenges yet we had the hope and promise of vaccines for all of us. And a year later that is absolutely so important for how we are going to get through this next phase as well. We all may be weary, but we can take away from what will be brighter days ahead. It is going to be a challenging few weeks, but we have the tools and we have that strong vaccine background that will get us through. We have faced adversity. And we have met head-on with unwavering resilience and kindness and adaptability and compassion. Please continue to use all of those layers you have available to you. And remind those around you to do that too, as we weather our pandemic storm together. Thank you. Thank you, Dr Henry. I wanted to let you know that we will be providing a COVID-19 bulletin this afternoon with daily numbers on case counts, vaccinations and outbreaks. Today I will be providing an update on the accelerated booster campaign. But I wanted just to give you a sense of the challenges in our hospitals, the situation facing our hospitals in terms of total number of patients. You will know that in our Q-care system we have 9,229 base beds. We have added 2,353 surge beds for a total of 11,582 beds. Today's patient census across the Q-care is 9,034, which is up over the last number of days. And obviously, lower than it was, for example, a month ago. In terms of critical care, we have 510 critical base, critical care beds and 218 surge critical care beds that are in place. We have today patient census of 454 critical care across BC. I think the challenge is the one that Dr Henry has talked about in terms of businesses, but it also is a key challenge for us in health care. It is why we are taking the measures we have taken in long-term care. It is not just to assure that we are taking the measures we have taken to ensure that beds are available and we have done this through a number of means, including the cancellation of non-urgent schedule surgeries starting in this period, in this January period, starting in this first non-stat or weekend day of January. But also other measures to make sure that we have a lower patient census and we already have so we are able to have space for COVID-19 patients, but it is also the case that we are going to be able to have this much COVID-19 in the community in ensuring staffing is in place. So those questions are being monitored every single day, but that is the current status of hospitalization in our province. With respect to the accelerated booster campaign, I just want to remind everyone that 4,399,000 British Columbians, 771 British Columbians have received their first dose of immunization of COVID-19, 4,136,540 their second dose. And as of last night, 961,014 have received their third or booster dose. That is in the over 12 population, 92% of all those over 12 received their first dose, 89% their second dose, 21% of their third dose. And since October 27, we have sent out 1,542,000 booster dose invitations. That is 40% of the other dose. And we have sent out 1,542,000 booster doses, 20% of the eligible population per booster. By the end of this coming week, we will have invited 46% of the eligible population. 950, as I said, some 960,000 boosters have been given in BC since the beginning of our booster campaign. And I want to just give you a sense of what groups have been focused on because we have focused, guided by the advice and support of public health, we focus on people who are the most vulnerable to severe outcomes. So 517,017,018 boosters are third doses for people 70 and above. That is more than 70% of the population, significantly more than that of the eligible population those who have received their first two doses. 630,866,000 for people 65 and over. That is almost 60%. And more than 50,000 of those over 60 as of last night had already received their third dose immunization. In addition, close to 100,000 healthcare workers, but 159,637 people who are clinically extremely vulnerable. Since New Year's Eve, December 31st, we have invited 378,634 people for boosters. And more invites are going out as we speak. And we will continue to invite those eligible over 18 over the rest of the week to clear all those by the end of this week all those who have passed six months since their second dose will have been invited to book by the end of this week. Following this, we will be inviting individuals as they become eligible at six months or 182 days from their dose two. Boosters are being booked in about 710 locations across the province. This is today and more sites are coming online daily in particular pharmacies and health authority clinics. And the number of pharmacies is increasing end of last week to this week by an additional 254 and another 200 in the middle of this month. All pharmacies are on the get vaccinated booking system. They are currently, as of today, 490,000 appointments open across the province. A capacity is growing on a daily basis. Newly added appointments are in pharmacies, both pharmacies and health authority clinics. They continue to revisit and try to move up their booking as capacity is coming on steam every day. If you wish to move your appointment for children 5 to 11, as of last night 134,822 people, children have been vaccinated in the 5 to 11 program with the Pfizer pediatric vaccine. 161,252 have booked an appointment. And 177,000 are now over 50% of the people who have been vaccinated. 177,000 are now over 50%. 177,831 have registered. Very much encourage everybody, everybody, all parents to register their children today to get the pediatric vaccine specially designed for children 5 to 11 today. As you can see, roughly 39% of all children have received from 5 to 11 and have received their first dose immunization. About 47,48% have booked an appointment and about 51,52% now are registered. But that number of registrations has to go up as the gap now between the number of people getting the vaccine and the number of people registered is closing. We obviously want more people to register. It will make children safer and of course your family safer as well. What will help us now is that this has helped us all along, adapting, adapting our practices and actions, adhering to public health orders and accepting the public health guidance offered, arranging to get our vaccines and boosters and applying our COVID sense and skills to all our interactions and encounters. This is of course one of and there have been many challenging times in our pandemic and that makes it our time to fight on. We have to continue to do this. It is a health system, all of us together to help people in these challenging times. To remember the great differences have always been made by our efforts. To acknowledge our efforts have made the essential difference all along. And to affirm to ourselves our continued efforts now will again make the difference we need. All of that is the case now and I encourage everyone to continue to join ourselves by getting vaccinated and following public health guidance and everyone we know, those that we love, those that we know and those that we do not know. Thank you very much. We are happy to take your questions. Thank you. As a reminder to reporters on the phone, please press star 1 to enter the queue. You are limited to one question and one follow-up. Please also remember to take your phone off mute as you can. Dr. Henry, considering what you said around functional closures, should British Columbians no longer anticipate that you are going to put restrictions in place and rather count on sectors to put in policies? And for example, with a Canucks game coming up potentially on Saturday, although COVID could postpone that, should the game put in place capacity limits rather than wait for a provincial order? A very good question. Capacity limits and the Canucks is something that we talk about on an ongoing basis and as you know, the game tomorrow has been postponed for a number of reasons and we are in ongoing discussions. But in terms of, I have said many, many times that I want to get out of the order business and I want to talk a little bit about that today. This is different. This strain of the virus is different. It is considerably different in how it presents in the shortness of the incubation period, in the shortness of illness for many people. And I just want to say I am very thankful that this strain has arisen now, not earlier on in this because with the transmissibility that we are seeing and the COVID-19 pandemic is such a large part of the population from vaccination. We would be in very, very challenging situations. So right now we have been through several phases of knowing what it takes to prevent transmission in many workplaces. And we spend a lot of time in BC with our COVID safety plans with different sectors so that we could keep things going if you remember back to many of the food processing measures that have come up with the important measures that would help reduce risk of transmission of illness. All of those need to be taken into account now. And it really is. Public health is reactive in terms of case management and contact tracing and outbreak management. But sectors now have the tools to do that from the experience that we have. And you need to because this is going to affect across the country, in other provinces, we are seeing that in other countries, everything from trucking to airlines having to cancel flights, those are the types of things we need to prepare ourselves for. Part of it is doing things to reduce transmission, to allow people to stay home if they are ill for that period of time, but also to have business continuity plans in place. And yes, I do think it is over and over again. It is how we need to get through this new wave together. And it is part of how we are working in schools to make sure that we can keep them open for the important role that they play, even though staff may be ill. And that is a large part of what schools, what our community colleges, our universities are doing this week in preparation for a full return next week. And I think we need to follow-up. I do, and it is a bit of a multi-parter with things that have gone unanswered over the last few days. Just trying to get a sense of whether the province is considering shortening the vaccine gap for kids. I know some jurisdictions are allowing kids 5 to 11 to get a second dose three weeks after the first. Is there any guidance about with so many new COVID cases? Is there guidance around whether or not they are getting a second dose? Should they be waiting longer or book immediately? And you alluded to this, Dr. Henry, is there any shift we have seen in how long people are staying in hospital with COVID now compared to before because of Omicron? So the first one, intervals for children, especially the 5 to 11, but also some of the 12 to 17. No, we are sticking with that for eight weeks for a variety of reasons. One, we know that even two doses is not going to prevent transmission from Omicron. And we know that even the first dose is really important for building up that strong antibody, but also that cell-mediated immune response. And that takes time to develop. And it's very clearly shown in adults from the work that we have done here in the last couple of weeks. And we know that the community that that extended interval is very important for having that mature, longer-lasting immune response. And we have no reason to believe that will be any different for children. So we are keeping the interval at the eight weeks because that gives you the best, longest lasting protection for whatever comes next. I think it's very clear we're going to be living up to the dose of vaccines that we can get for all. Excuse me, in terms of boosters, you can receive even if you've been infected, particularly right now with Omicron. We know lots of people are getting mild infections. When you are feeling better and recovered from that infection, then you can get your booster dose. And we do encourage you to get your booster dose. As we know, this virus is changing, and when we get to the virus itself, it can be to different parts of the virus, which sometimes gives us a stronger response to different proteins in the virus. But we know that the vaccine boosts that immunity, particularly to the spike protein, the one that binds into the cells. So it gives you super immunity, if you will, if you get both vaccine after you've been infected. So it is important to continue in any time after you're starting to feel better. You can get the booster shot. Third question was about length of stay of hospitalizations. And so that is something we're watching. We have seen a slight increase in hospitalizations. And we're doing a deep dive. We started on the weekend to understand not only, and we're seeing this in jurisdictions in other places as well, to understand how many people where COVID is detected once they've been admitted to hospital. We know that happens because we're doing screening in certain cases, sometimes before surgeries, for example. And how many people have underlying illnesses that may be exacerbated by COVID? And these are questions that we were talking about nationally this morning and over the weekend. Having a good understanding of actually how severe an illness is causing by age and by underlying risk factors. So those are details that we still are trying to gather. We don't have a high number of cases yet in hospital in BC. So that's something that, as I've said, we're watching really carefully to better understand the actual severity of Omicron compared to Delta, for example. But early indications show that in other parts of the world, and early indications here, that a shorter length of stay for people who are admitted with Omicron in people who are vaccinated. So that's something that we'll have more details on by next week. Our next question is from David Mulco, CTV. DR. ANNE WALCO, CTV. DR. ANNE WALCO, CTV. I'm just going to touch on what Richard asked, but perhaps put it a different way. One of the things you said just in the briefing, you said, with respect, you're the provincial health officer. When you say I want to get out of the order business, my jaw just hit the ground. I'll make the leap and say I'm not really the only one. So we're seeing more orders in places like Ontario indoor dining clothes. Quebec, a curfew, Manitoba just announced further school start delays, I think another week or two. So respectfully, help me pick my jaw up. Why isn't that, in your view, the path for us in British Columbia? Yeah, it's from the very beginning to the end of the day. I think we're going to be there as a last resort. When we want to make sure that people are absolutely doing things, and we want to do them in what we call the least restrictive means. That has always been our philosophy here and how we've moved forward. It's trying to find that balance of doing just enough so that we can prevent the surge on morbidity or mortality. And it goes back again, and I've said this many, many years ago, we're going to have a pandemic response. And the primary is to prevent serious illness, to prevent sickness and death, to prevent overwhelming of our health care system. And that's a really, really important one, because when the health care system gets overwhelmed and overwhelmed, as we saw in the north, for example, most recently, it means that people can't get care for other things, not just COVID. And thirdly, and really importantly, it's to minimize societal disruption. We know that there are really important downside effects on growth and development and mental health if we don't have schools open in person, for example, and that those can affect children for decades to come. So we have always tried to find that balance, and orders are in place to try and make sure that those things that are at need to be put to be shut are shut for that period of time, the least period of time possible. And this is, you know, I talked a little bit about people trying to skirt or bend the rules when we do have as many orders as we need to have in place, and thinking about, this is not about skirting the rules. It's about trying to reduce the risk from those highest risk situations and putting in place what we can to get us through this without overwhelming our health care system and minimizing the impact we have on society. And so that has been our approach here in BC from the very beginning, and we have done this together. We don't have to force people to close to be able to get people to do the right thing and to take those measures that get us through this as well. Thanks, and happy New Year by the way, but speaking of that tricky balance that you've mentioned, you know, I know you've said this and others have said this, you know, you can be accused of overreacting before things get worse and afterwards accused of really not acting fast enough, but I want to kind of look back over the last few weeks as Omicron quickly flared its head here in BC. This is a question both for you and for the minister. So if I look back on it, and I've said this many times, you know, that there's always trade-offs, and we try and find that balance and we agonize over those decisions. And I think one of the things that we've had in place is some baseline things for some time, things like mask-wearing and indoor public places. And it becomes more and more important to have those baseline measures in place. We've had restrictions on numbers of events and things. And then moving into the holiday period, again, trying to find that balance where we know that it is social gatherings and social connections and types of indoor activities that where we started to see this spread more rapidly. And as you know, we were coming off Delta, so we still had some very strong restrictions in place in some communities that were making a difference. So we were trying to find that balance earlier, including focusing on booster shots on the people who are more likely, most likely, to end up with more severe illness or end up in hospital. That's something that I think is really, really important. And it will be no surprise to you that I'm going to leave it at that because I think there's lots of time to second-guess things in the future. But we take every decision and find that balance that I was just talking about. I think what you've seen from public health and Dr. Henry is a clear response to the Oman-Khrom variant of concern we put in place public health orders where necessary. A change before last weekend into address issues and challenges in long-term care by temporarily limiting long-term care. And I think that's a important step to take. We took steps weeks ago to say that in January and gives us time to plan and prepare that we were going to delay non-urgent scheduled surgeries in January to prepare our healthcare system. And we haven't seen, I think you'll see when the report comes out at 3 o'clock today, you'll see an increase in hospitalizations. We haven't seen the dramatic increase they've seen in some jurisdictions, but we're preparing for that because we expect those numbers to go up in the coming weeks. So action on hospitalization, action on acute care. And I think the decision to focus our immunization, our booster program on those that are most vulnerable was a decision that was taken by our team, by Dr. Henry, Dr. Ballum, by the government on October 26, we laid out those priorities for people. And those eligible over 70 now have received their booster dose that, unlike many other jurisdictions, we focused on clinically vulnerable people, 1,000 of those on healthcare workers in indigenous communities. That supports us in these actions. But look, the Omicron variant of concern, we see it in many, many countries in the world and all the other jurisdictions in Canada, is causing a significant increase in transmission. It's in some ways a new pandemic or a changed pandemic. And we're going to continue to adapt and adjust every day, as I think our people in BC. And I think what's really important right now, and I'm happy people can assess and judge and they will, in BC. But I would say all of us have to assess these new circumstances and recommit ourselves to following public health guidance and orders. And when there are public health orders balanced in dealing with public health orders in the time, those public health orders need to be adhered to. And the public health guidance, you need to adhere to that too for your own health and those that you love. If we continue to do that, we're going to get through this period. This is immensely challenging and different than the Delta search, the previous waves we've seen, the Delta search or the challenges at the beginning of the pandemic, we can respond well to this situation as well. Our next question is from Lisa Cordasco, Vancouver Sun. I'd like to ask on behalf of advocates for those in long-term care, they're asking that you make it a requirement that every resident is entitled to an essential visitor. As it stands, about 25% of long-term care residents have a designated essential visitor. And I think that's a very important point. And the criteria is applied by individual care home administrators. And so they're asking, you know, will you make it a requirement that every resident is entitled to an essential visitor? Yes. We went through this last summer and working with the seniors advocate and the long-term care sector. And there's two different types of visitors that we recognize. Both are essential. One is a designated, as an essential visitor, in terms of they provide additional care to that individual and help them with certain things. And yes, that is a decision that's made between the residents and the facility. But the other one that is equally essential in the life and quality of life of residents is having social visitors. And so we are asking for additional social visitors. And so we have a designated social visitor that everybody, every resident is expected to be able to have at least one. We've had a provision for more than one. And then, of course, as you know, over the last little while, there's been unlimited numbers of visitors. As we're moving into this risk phase again, we know that residents are well protected. But because they're older and we have a number of people that are going in and out of long-term care homes during this high transmission period. So I did take the measure of restricting it to essential visitors for this past weekend because we were hearing about challenges with staffing and being able to screen visitors appropriately. And we now have rapid antigen tests that are designated for testing visitors and starting as soon as they are deployed in each facility, we'll be going to having every resident have their designated social visitor as well as their essential visitor being allowed and being able to visit with them anytime. Lisa, do you have a follow-up? Yes. Okay. I understand the history of the visitors and how they're designated. What I'm saying is that, okay, let's move on to the rapid test. I'm told also that there are long-term care homes that are being denied to long-term care homes. So under your plan, how many rapid tests can be expected to be received at long-term care homes this week? And will there be an exact protocol put in place that is required for every visit or required for the beginning of every shift of designated workers? So that is an urban myth that there's millions of rapid tests in a long-term care home somewhere. We have made rapid tests in their various forms available to long-term care for many months and they have been used in many long-term care. Particularly, you will recall, when we made it a requirement that long-term care staff all be vaccinated and there was a period of time when rapid tests were used in between times until people got their second vaccine, et cetera. So they have been available. We have been able to do this about two, three weeks ago. Specific rapid antigen tests, the nasal tests that are on the lateral flow that we have in and there's over 100,000 distributed and started last week to long-term care homes across the province and that's for every visitor on a daily basis to be tested prior to their visit. Did you want to mention anything? Our next question is from Camille Baines, Canadian Press. Hi, Dr. Henry. Thanks for taking my question. With your concerns about businesses keeping their doors open, do you foresee prioritizing booster shots for employees like course restore workers or teachers or any of those types of groups? Yes. So the way our immunization program rolled out, you will recall, is that many of our groups were prioritized for early access once we got through the over 70s essentially in March and April of last year. So yes, those are the people that are now, as of this past weekend, starting to get their invites for their booster shots. So we still want to maintain that six-month interval between dose 2 and dose 3, but many teachers, many other staff who are in the younger age groups will have started to receive their invites starting this past weekend. And that is, it's a combination of the interval and when people got their first and second doses of vaccine, so it automatically prioritizes those workers who were in those settings that were prioritized for getting their first and second doses as well. Camille, do you have a follow-up? Yes. What would you say to parents who are still reluctant to get their children vaccinated at this point? Yeah, you know, there's lots of reasons why parents, especially for the 5 to 11 year olds, have had concerns. I've talked to many parents about this. It's a different feeling when it's like, okay, I'll take that for myself. But they want, there's a little bit of a, I want to wait and see how it's going to work. And I want to understand all of the ins and outs of how this works and how the clinics work. And what I can tell you now is that we now have done over 170,000 5 to 11 year-old children. I've been there myself at many of the clinics. We have lots of really good information on millions of children around the world who have been vaccinated with this pediatric vaccine and it is safe. It's important for them. It's important to protect them. We know that this illness, thankfully, is still mostly mild in children, but some children do have serious illness. And there's a level of anxiety that I hear from young people in my life that they're afraid that they're going to get sick and bring it home or that they're going to pass it on to their friends. And this is an important thing that we can do to protect our children. This is a very safe vaccine and it works and it's good for all of our kids. And it's going to be one of those things that helps us get back to a normal school and after school activities for all our kids. Our next question is from Delana Nisha. Hi, Dr. Henry, thanks for taking my question. Just for some clarification within interior health, when residents of a community are being treated in hospital and are discharged, do they need to be tested for COVID-19 before returning to their living facility? That is the protocol that normally residents are transferred back to facility from a hospital or if they're an alternative level of care and they're waiting placement in a care home that they are tested prior to returning to that facility, yes. Delana, do you have a question? That's great. Thanks. The Jim owners we have spoken to want to see the data around COVID transmission and Jim, how and when will you be able to provide that to them? And if you could answer in English and French, please. I've talked to a number of the leaders in the fitness industry. They've been part of our ongoing work around where we put research and research into the where we put restrictions and I know these are challenging times and I can tell you that this isn't about skirting and bending the rules and some of the gyms are talking about this. It's also not about that gyms are doing things wrong. Most of them have been fantastic and they're doing a great job. The reality is and we've seen this repeatedly, that the type of activities that happen in fitness and in the spin classes, that these are indoor activities with adults in a group, even wearing masks where you know that the risk is higher. It's just is. It's same with travel. It's the same with certain industries that these are higher risk industries. And when we have a lot of transmission in our community, we have repeatedly seen the gyms become amplifiers and we've had a number of examples of that that we put in place. So while I may not have and certainly right now, I can't tell you every single case that's been linked to a gym, but we can tell you that we've seen this as a pattern, that these are environments that are higher risk and when there's a lot of transmission in the community, particularly in that age group, so the age demographic that is going to gyms that is highly connected and so there are people who are younger, who are younger and so we know that these transmission links are happening and it's spreading into higher risk settings. So it's not about these gyms are doing everything right in many cases, but the reputable ones understand that they're not going to put their staff and clients at risk when we're seeing the amount of transmission that we're seeing right now. And this will pass and I'm working very closely with the industry, with the sports groups to make sure that we can get back to doing safe activities in gyms as soon as possible, as soon as this wave passes. And I'm committed to that. I know that my gyms that I go to is doing amazing things online, one-on-one, and in groups and we need to do that for a period of time until we can get back to normal. It's a question of what we can do in what was necessary to close them, except for the virtual classes at the current time. It was necessary for its reasons. The transmission, the test positivity is eight times what it was before on the crown right now in BC. So some of the things that we were doing in the period before on the crown, we can't do that, but gyms didn't do what we asked them to do in the period beforehand, because we did work together on that and public health work very closely with the industry. But we're in a different situation now, that required that the action take place. Obviously, now that gyms are not open, that the information or the evidence you've asked for will not be attainable now, but public health rightly determined that they will not be able to do that. So we're in this period of very high transmission of COVID-19. Bell, do you have a follow-up? Yes, please. When you consider the types of situations that could force the closures of schools, what level of thickness would have to be in place to trigger such a closure, how much notice would parents be given if the school was about to close and once it closes, why there's a number of days here for staff to address all of those specific questions. Those are the things we've been working with them. What are the protocols for reporting of how many people are absent, whether it's students or staff for sickness, what type of illness are we seeing? These are things that we have in place for influenza and norovirus outbreaks in the community. We want to put them together and make sure that they're school-specific and district- specific. So there's what the planning scenarios we're looking at, and I talked a little bit about this for business, is up to 10% of staff are off ill. What do you do then? Up to 30%. How do we manage and what triggers would mean going to some sort of a hybrid? How would we manage it with those protocols in place? Because it will vary. School in a small community where there's not as many staff available to support. How do you have mixed classes if you need to support with students off and staff off? Those are all the things that are being worked through this week and why we had a phased return so that we could have those clearly articulated and parents will hear from their districts about that. It is not possible for us to report cases and exposure events in the same way, given the transmission that we're seeing. So how that will be reported from schools to parents and public health will be supporting schools in doing that is also how we need to work that through this week. Our next question is from Lisa Yuzda, City News. I'm hoping Dr Henry, you can talk through, in Toronto today, John Torrey was talking about how the transmission is going to happen next week from now. What kind of timeline are we looking at here over the next month or two? Yes, I didn't hear that, but I think that's probably more pessimistic than I'm seeing. When I look at what's happening in other countries, we look at Denmark, we look at the UK, obviously South Africa, when we started to see the rapid rise, it's hard to know when we're going to see that. I think with the shorter incubation period, the shorter length of illness that we're probably going to see a shorter peak than what we've seen with previous waves, but it is day by day looking at what we're seeing, and what we're trying to do is flatten that out a bit, which will extend it somewhat, but if we can flatten it out, then we can protect better our health care system, because even a small proportion of people needing hospital care can have such a dramatic impact on the health care system. So I won't venture to say, but I hope that it will be shorter than another four to six weeks for sure. Please, do you have a follow-up?  Looking at hospitals in our health care system, when are we going to hit the point of two-quartal code oranges at hospitals in Ontario? When are we looking at that happening here, and how is that mitigated? If a couple of the hospitals here in the island or in Metro Vancouver are code orange, how do others absorb it? What happens in the worst case scenario? This is something that we are also planning for. I talked a little bit about the priorities of my partner, Deputy Minister Stephen Brown, and we've been looking at this for some time. It is part of our pandemic planning scenarios is how to maximize the work force. So one of the big things is making sure everybody is vaccinated. That was an important key point in trying to preserve our healthy health care workers. Looking at the period of time of isolation that's required, looking at who is going to be vaccinated. We have specific competencies and specific jobs so they can backfill, maximizing hours, and I know we've had in some places to ask people to come back off holidays. So there's a whole series of measures that we're taking, looking at our health human resources, recognizing that we've been stretched. We've been stretched prior to the pandemic, and people have been stretched to the limit and beyond during this last pandemic. So we're making sure we can continue to scale up our immunization programs and some of the things like scaling back on surgeries is a really important thing. There are a number of public health activities that we are no longer doing so we can support the activities in the pandemic. So this is an ongoing health human resource planning that we've been doing for some weeks. And we'll continue to do. One of the things that Quebec has talked about is allowing healthcare workers with mild or asymptomatic COVID to come back to work. So we do have protocols for that, should that be required, because that would be absolutely a last resort and we would only want them to work with COVID patients for example so that we wouldn't increase risk anywhere else in a facility, but the protocols for how that would happen, what we would do to make sure that that's all the time we have today for questions. This concludes today's event. Thank you everyone for joining. Thank you.