New Brunswick Public Health reported four new cases in the province yesterday, with three of those cases in Zone 1, the southeast region which includes Sackville and Tantramar. The fourth case is in the Fredericton region.
All of the new cases are under investigation, according to a government news release.
New Brunswick now has 32 active reported cases of COVID-19 as of Tuesday afternoon, with half of those in the southeast region. 23 of those active cases are listed as “under investigation” on the province’s COVID-19 dashboard.
Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr. Jennifer Russell says that “under investigation” means that the contact tracing for the case is not complete, and does not mean that Public Health has established community transmission.
So far, out of New Brunswick’s 379 total reported cases of COVID-19, only 13 have been deemed as community transmission, while 128 were travel related, and 215 were close contacts of other cases.
“There’s no community transmission at this point,” Russell says.
Over in Nova Scotia, the province announced on Tuesday that seven previously announced cases of COVID-19 are being attributed to community transmission.
Recently, a potential public exposure advisory was issued for a shoe store in the Champlain Mall which spanned five days from November 6 through 10, and was most likely related to a worker, though Public Health will not confirm that detail.
When asked if she expects a cluster of connected cases to come from the potential public exposure at Aldo Shoes, Russell says it depends on factors like “if people were wearing their masks, how long they were spending in that setting, and how close people are together.”
Although she’s not giving specific information about whether any public advisories have yielded further cases, she says that in other outbreak situations they have.
“So we’ll have to wait and see,” she says. “But certainly we always err on the side of being overly cautious in these situations to make sure that nobody gets missed.”
Details on all potential public exposure advisories in New Brunswick are at this link.
Though there’s no confirmed community transmission, Russell says she is still concerned, especially considering the situation in the rest of the country.
“I’m very worried because the number of cases is going up in other jurisdictions in Canada, increasing every single day in record numbers, and they’re locked down,” says Russell. “They’re locked down in the UK and Europe, and in the US. There are record breaking numbers of daily cases being reported every day.”
Russell says there is some reassurance in New Brunswick when we see cases that are travel-related or connected to previous cases.
But, she says, “in some outbreaks we’ve seen in New Brunswick already, we have had upwards of 25 to 30 close contacts,” which she says is a high number. “Until there’s a vaccine, having a large number of close contacts will continue to be a big risk and a driver of outbreaks.”
“We want everybody to know that if you’re not wearing your mask, and you’re less than six feet away from somebody, that’s a close contact, and they’re at risk of either giving COVID-19 to you, or you’re at risk of giving COVID-19 to them. And it’s as simple as that,” says Russell.
Another driver of transmission is people who are not getting tested when they have very mild symptoms, says Russell.
“We all have to take responsibility for protecting each other, protecting our economy, protecting businesses, keeping our schools open and preventing our healthcare systems from being overwhelmed like what we’re seeing in Manitoba and Ontario,” says Russell. “The stories are heartbreaking, and I do not want to see that happen in New Brunswick.”
