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VICTORIA — While short-term efforts focus on slowing the novel coronavirus spread over the next few weeks, B.C. could be living with some form of containment regime for the rest of this year and into the next.

So suggested provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry and Health Minister Adrian Dix when asked this week what the future holds in the medium to long term.

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Up to now they’ve been reluctant to do much speculation along those lines. But Tuesday they did, and the comments were sobering.

“I said a week ago that there was zero chance, none, that any of the orders would be varied by the end of April,” said Dix, paraphrasing what he told the legislature during the brief sitting on March 23.

“It’s still zero chance before the end of April. And in terms of any of the orders, a similar kind of chance, little to none, in May or in the immediate weeks after May.”

That dovetails with the word from other jurisdictions, where lockdowns of one kind or another are expected to continue for the next three months or so.