By the end of January, B.C. health officials are hoping additional treatment options will be available to battle COVID-19, including antiviral medications that are currently under review by Health Canada.
This includes Pfizer’s Paxlovid and Merck’s molnupiravir, which are both oral antiviral pills that can be taken at home to treat infections.
B.C.’s provincial health officer, Dr. Bonnie Henry, said at a media briefing Tuesday that while the province is still riding the Omicron variant wave, “we may soon enter the place we see a decline.”
Hospitalizations continue to climb in B.C. with many people sick with the Delta variant and the Omicron variant.
Henry said right now there are three people in their 20s and one person in their 30s in ICU battling COVID. All four people are unvaccinated, she said.
“This strain of the virus is absolutely, mostly mild, in people that have the protection that the vaccine offers,” Henry said
Those without vaccination are at a higher risk of ending up in hospital, she added, and while vaccinated people can still contract Omicron, vaccination reduces the risk of hospitalization to about 50 per cent.
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