B.C.’s Health Minister says if you are planning to travel over the December Holiday season – this is not the year.

“It’s not every Christmas, it’s not every year, it’s not every ski trip, just this year right now,” Adrian Dix said, noting people should plan to stay in their communities.

“The current orders around travel are in place for two weeks, but this period is not a time when we should be doing non-essential travel to other provinces, or jurisdictions, or around B.C. This is the time to stay close.”

Interior Health’s Medical Officer of Health for Kamloops, Dr. Carol Fenton says to be able to enjoy anything close to a ‘normal’ holiday season, people need to be taking all necessary measures now.

“What happens at Christmas is entirely dependent on what we do now,” Fenton said. “So if we can work together and keep our numbers and turn the curve around now, we’re more likely to be able to have a more normal Christmas.”

Speaking during a media briefing on Monday, Provincial Health Officer Dr. Bonnie Henry was asked if people will be able to get together with friends and family who live in other households.

“Yeah, no, I don’t know the answer to that yet. This is because of what we are seeing right now so all of us need to think about no gatherings, supporting our families and our friends in remote ways, in ways that are safe,” Henry said.

Henry too is recommending that people limit non essential travel anywhere inside or outside the province as the number of cases continues to increase.

“We need to go back to how were thinking earlier on in this pandemic when the virus was in our community,” she said. “We know a lot more now and we know that the virus comes with us. And when we travel, we bring that risk with us and we take home the risk from where we’ve been.”

“If its not necessary to visit don’t do it right now and its most important in those areas where we are seeing a lot of community transmission but this is spreading around our province, and we now know that the season makes its easier for this virus to spread.”

B.C. health officials reported 1,959 new cases of COVID-19 over the weekend – 87 of which were in Interior Health – along with nine new deaths.

An order restricting travel to and from the Lower Mainland is set to expire on November 23rd – but Dix says we’ll get an update this Thursday.