Today’s update centres around Thursday’s provincial announcement on the circuit breaker put into place in most of the Northern Health region until November 19, 2021. 

The new provincial restrictions do not affect our academic endeavours on campus at UNBC. The circuit breaker is designed to reduce the number of social interactions in our communities. This translates into less exposure and reduced potential for transmission for all of us. 

One area that will be impacted is non-educational gatherings and events, so we are working with organizers to ensure the new restrictions are adhered to. 

The circuit breaker does not affect our regional campus operations in the Northwest. 

We continue to follow all Provincial Officer Health orders and guidelines and continue to encourage our students, faculty and staff to take advantage of vaccination clinics, to stay home when sick, and to wear masks at all times.

In addition, we have been working for many months with our union leadership to develop approaches and solutions that work for us at UNBC. For example, we recently announced that masks will be a requirement through the rest of this semester at a minimum. We are actively monitoring the situation on our campuses and are committed to our community’s health and safety.

There are several highlights of the latest provincial health order: 

• Indoor personal gatherings are limited to your household plus five vaccinated visitors or one other fully vaccinated household. Outdoor personal gatherings are limited to 25 fully vaccinated people. 
• There is no change to indoor or outdoor educational activities. 
• Non-educational organized gatherings and events require a safety plan and attendees are required to be fully vaccinated and to wear masks.
• Indoor non-educational activities changes now require people to be fully vaccinated, wear a mask and are limited to 50 people
• As for outdoor non-educational activities, the changes now require people to be fully vaccinated, wear a mask, and are limited to 100 people.
• Indoor sporting event requirements remain at 50 per cent occupancy for spectators, proof of vaccination and masks to be worn.

As for outdoor sporting events, varsity games at Masich Place will be limited to 50 per cent spectator occupancy, proof of vaccination is required and masks must be worn by spectators.

The only change at The Thirsty Moose, operated by NUGSS, is that they need to close their doors at 10 p.m. Proof of vaccination is already a requirement.

We will continue to keep the UNBC community up-to-date with the latest information regarding the coronavirus pandemic. Our transition and return-to-campus website is updated regularly and is a good source of information. 

Stay safe, and thank you!

Geoff Payne
President and Vice-Chancellor (Interim)