This story is developing and will be updated.
Details are scarce but B.C. health officer Bonnie Henry has said consultations with religious leaders will lead to limited in-person gatherings in time for Easter and Passover.
At a press conference March 15 Henry said there are plans to create a “class” of religious gatherings under public health orders that will allow services to take place in limited ways. Guidelines for outdoor and indoor religious services are being considered.
“[Faith leaders] understand that we are still in a very precarious situation and some communities absolutely are not yet ready to have in-person services,” while in other communities “it can be done perfectly safely,” she said.
Henry hopes guidance on religious services will be available next week. Currently, social gatherings of up to 10 people are allowed outdoors.
She added the consultation process will also look at a phased re-opening of religious services in the next few months.
Passover begins at sundown March 27 and Easter is April 4.
Various religious leaders and groups have denounced the current ban on religious gatherings as unfair as businesses and other activities have remained open. A few have taken the government to court over what they deem a trampling of their constitutional rights.
In-person religious gatherings have been banned in the province since Nov. 19, though a small number of Christian and Jewish congregations have received exemptions.
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