New Brunswick’s Chief Medical Officer Dr. Jennifer Russell announced eight new cases of COVID-19 during today’s live press conference.
Two of those new cases are in Zone 1 (Moncton region), one is travel-related and the other remains under investigation. The other cases are in Zones 2 (St. John region), 4 (Edmundston region), and 6 (Bathurst region).
Zone 4 has four new cases, two of which are contacts of a previously reported case and the other two are under investigation.
The other two cases in Zones 2 and 6 are both travel-related.
Eighteen patients are in the hospital due to COVID-19, which is one less than yesterday, and 12 patients are in intensive care.
Some patients who were recently in the hospital had in fact been vaccinated with one or two doses of a COVID-19 vaccine.
Today, Dr. Russell clarified that even if you have been vaccinated, you can definitely still catch and transmit the disease.
“If you have been vaccinated, don’t let that give you a false sense of security,” warns Dr. Russell. “We do know that most people who are vaccinated will be protected against severe symptoms, hospitalizations, ICU admissions, and death. But remember that we won’t all have one dose of the vaccine on board until at least the end of June. There will be still a significant portion of the population that won’t be vaccinated and protected against those severe outcomes.”
“People can contract COVID-19 after being vaccinated, we are getting more data every day on the transmissibility,” says Dr. Russell. “At this time when we see somebody who has had a vaccine test positive for COVID, they have very mild symptoms or they don’t have any symptoms at all. So these asymptomatic carriers can spread the virus to others who have not been vaccinated resulting in further spread.”
On the note of testing, Public Health announced that anyone who recently visited an area of exposure is eligible for asymptomatic testing.
There are no recent exposure notifications for Zone 1, but remember to check for them periodically. CHMA updates the community news page whenever we hear of any new ones.
The long-suffering Zone 4 continues to have new cases, including some that Public Health cannot connect to any previously reported cases, but Dr. Russell is optimistic that the situation is becoming less dire.
So much so, that the Grand Falls region of the Zone is moving from Red to Orange tonight.
Minister Shephard says that 25% of the population has been inoculated with at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine. The Government of New Brunswick only counts those 16 years old and older when they calculate those statistics, since anyone younger than that is ineligible to be vaccinated as of today.
With those under 16 included, 20% of New Brunswick’s population has been vaccinated with at least one dose.
Minister Shephard also clarified that the delays in Moderna supply has not impacted New Brunswick’s vaccine rollout pace.
“We’ve had to pivot and push out some clinics,” says Shephard, “but essentially, we are at where we thought we would be.”
When asked why it’s taking so long to bring the outbreak under control compared to Newfoundland’s recent outbreak, Dr. Russell hypothesized it could be a combination of a slower move to lockdown and community transmission.
“I can’t really give a great hypothesis as to why other than I think they went to lockdown probably earlier,” says Dr. Russell. “We’re trying to be the least restrictive possible with managing the COVID outbreaks to allow an open society with education and people able to earn an income…We do have some community transmission, which I don’t think Newfoundland had. We have several cases that we weren’t able to link to the main clusters, so I would I would say that that’s probably contributing to it as well.”
