Hear this story as reported on Tantramar Report:
Another New Brunswicker has died due to underlying complications, including COVID-19.
The person was between 80 and 89 years old, and was a resident of Villa des Jardins, an adult residential facility in Zone 4 (Edmundston).
22 people have passed away due to COVID-19 in New Brunswick.
As for new cases, New Brunswick had just two new cases of COVID-19 to announce today.
Both of these cases are in young people, with the case in Zone 1 (Moncton) in a person age 20 to 29 and the case in Zone 4 in a person age 19 or under.
There are 161 active cases of COVID-19 in the province, 27 of which are in Zone 1.
Six patients are currently hospitalized, with two of them requiring intensive care.
As promised, the government of New Brunswick gave a special presentation to provide information about the UK variant strain of COVID-19 recently discovered in the province.
Dr. Gordon Dow, an infectious disease specialist with Horizon Health Network and a member of New Brunswick’s pandemic task force, says that the UK variant is between 30-80% more infectious.
The more infectious strain has the capability of exponentially spreading across the province, causing more deaths from the disease in the process.
Dr. Dow says that “if your reproduction number [R] is above one, that leads to exponential spread of the virus. Which means instead of just infecting one more person every few days, you’re actually infecting two or more.”
As for the slow turnaround time for variant testing, Dr. Russell says that she has been talking with the Georges Dumont lab to see if variant testing could be done there.
As of right now, more aggressive self-isolation protocols and contact tracing are being used to try and stay ahead of the spread.
All those who contracted the UK variant, or are suspected to have it, must self-isolate for 21 days rather than 14.
Dr. Dow says that he is not concerned about the one week delay, as the way Public Health responds to a regular outbreak is the same way they respond to a suspected variant.
Both the Minister of Health Dorothy Shephard and Dr. Russell stressed that when it comes to variants it’s a “day-by-day, week-by-week” learning process.
Our neighbours in Nova Scotia identified two new cases of COVID-19 yesterday, bringing the active total to 11.
Both cases were in the central zone and are related to previously reported cases.
Newfoundland and Labrador set an unfortunate record yesterday, with an even 100 new cases, the highest ever one-day total for the province.
Newfoundland now has 216 active cases, its highest active case count since April of last year.
