Public health reported 14 new cases of COVID 19 yesterday in the province. No new cases were in Zone 1, where the active case count dropped to 28 yesterday.
The Fredericton and Saint John regions each had one new case, and the remaining 12 new cases were in the Edmundston region.
Five of those cases were in the J.D. Irving sawmill in Saint-Léonard, where Public Health has declared an outbreak. Further investigation and contact tracing are underway, and employees at the facility are being tested.
The sawmill has not closed down, though a news release from the company says a section of the plant was closed to perform a deep disinfection. The Irving statement says that the employees who tested positive all work in an isolated area, away from the main sawmill.
The sawmill has 272 employees, who will all have access to three tests over the next two weeks, said the company.
A child care facility in nearby Grand Falls also confirmed a positive case of COVID-19, and closed yesterday for contact tracing.
ATLANTIC PROVINCES: OUTBREAK IN NEWFOUNDLAND AND VARIANTS IN NOVA SCOTIA
Over in Newfoundland, an outbreak in the St. John’s region continues to grow rapidly, with 53 new confirmed cases announced yesterday, and another 32 new presumptive positive cases, also in the same region.
44 of the confirmed cases are in kids under 19 years of age.
There’s now 110 confirmed active cases of COVID-19 in the province, and tightened restrictions go into effect tonight at midnight.
In Nova Scotia, just one new case was reported yesterday, a close contact of a previous case. But health officials also reported that two more cases of the UK variant have been identified in Nova Scotia, in cases first reported in January in the Central health zone, which includes Halifax. The source of those infections was never determined, and so Nova Scotia public health says it will reopen an investigation to try to determine where the variant cases came from.
PEI did not report any new cases yesterday.
Across Canada, the trend continues downward for active cases across the country.
