The province鈥檚 top doctor credited high vaccination among the University of Victoria community for helping mitigate the effects of spiking COVID-19 cases associated with the school.

鈥淭he vaccination rates in our universities and colleges in B.C. are in the high 90s,鈥� Dr. Bonnie Henry said during a Friday briefing, where new COVID-19 measures were announced in response to the Omicron variant. 鈥淚n UVic, it was 97 (or) 98 per cent and that鈥檚 reflected in the fact that even though (COVID-19) spread very widely in the group of students in the social gatherings, they did not have anybody with severe disease.

鈥淭hat鈥檚 good news.鈥�

UVic moved all its remaining exams online as of Monday (Dec. 130. Also on that day, Island Health and the university said a cluster of COVID-19 cases associated with the school community had risen to 124, including at least four cases of the Omicron variant as of Monday. The uptick in cases was linked to off-campus social gatherings and a national rugby tournament in Kingston last month.

Island Health and UVic said earlier this week that COVID-19 transmission on-campus hasn鈥檛 been identified, something the province鈥檚 health officer echoed on Friday.

鈥淲e know that cases have been very low at post-secondary institutions and we have not had transmission in classroom settings, for example, or in lab settings,鈥� Henry said. 鈥淚t has been almost exclusively in those social events, off-campus mostly, where there鈥檚 not mask-wearing.鈥�

In general, she said, 鈥渨e鈥檝e had a very successful return to campus across the province.鈥�

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