As of midnight tonight, all of New Brunswick will go into the orange phase of restrictions.
That means a return to the single household bubble, which may include caregivers and immediate family members requiring support. Single people may count a friend or neighbour as a support person.
Orange also means masks are again required outside when two metres of distance can’t be maintained. And the province is recommending against travel within the province for non-essential reasons.
Restaurants can remain open, but only members of the same bubble may sit together. Measures at schools ramp up, including increased mask wearing. Sports teams may meet to practice, but not engage in competition with other teams. Churches and faith venues can host gatherings, but with a maximum of 50 people following COVID guidelines. And entertainment venues and other businesses can operate within COVID operational plans.
The orange level announcement comes along with a reported 27 new cases on Tuesday, the highest number of daily new cases in New Brunswick throughout the entire pandemic.
Nine of the new cases are in the southeast region, putting the number of active cases in the southeast up to 31.
Chief Medical Officer of Health Jennifer Russell told reporters on Tuesday that there were two clusters of cases in the southeast region as of Monday afternoon. Russell said the clusters were, “mostly related to gatherings around the Christmas time period, also some workplace exposures.” Russell also said that there may be more clusters as of Tuesday.
Four other health regions reported new cases. The breakdown is as follows:
Zone 1 (Moncton-southeast region): 9 new cases
Zone 2 (Saint John region): 3 new cases
Zone 3 (Fredericton region): 11 new cases
Zone 4 (Edmundston region): 2 new cases
Zone 5 (Campbellton region): 2 new cases
There are 80 active cases in the province, and 73 of those are listed as “under investigation” on the provincial COVID-19 dashboard.
“What is also of concern is that we haven’t seen the spike in a number of cases related to New Year’s Eve gatherings,” said Russell on Tuesday. “So that, compounded with the number of cases we’re seeing right now, does not bode well for the immediate future in terms of how we’re managing.”
Russell said that a commonality among new cases was people not getting testing when they had mild symptoms. There was a drop in testing numbers over the holidays due to fewer requested tests, which Russell says is now rebounding.
“We need everybody to actively get tested if they have even the mildest of symptoms of COVID-19,” said Russell. “We need you to stay at home if you have symptoms of COVID-19. Please do not gather with family and friends. And please do not go to work.”
Russell said that mild symptoms could be deceiving, and easily passed off as something else. “COVID-19 presents in a number of ways, and when you contract it, you may not feel that unwell,” said Russell. “You may be inclined to think it’s just a cold and press ahead with your daily activities… a headache, fatigue. But when you do this, you put everyone around you at risk of exposure.”
Premier Blaine Higgs was more admonishing in his remarks. “We knew that some would selfishly ignore the rules,” he said, referring to the pre-holiday period.
The premier said that a poker game in rural New Brunswick resulted in multiple cases, and one symptomatic person who went to work exposed up to 150 others. “Some have lied to public health contact tracers, slowing down and reducing the effectiveness of contact tracing and putting others at risk,” said Higgs. “If you don’t care about yourself, please care about others.”
“There is no shame in getting COVID-19,” said Higgs, “but there is shame in lying to someone or avoiding the reality, and someone paying the ultimate price and dying because of it.”
NEW VARIANTS AND INCREASED TRAVEL BRING MORE RISK
Russell also mentioned the two new variants of the coronavirus, which are said to be more easily transmitted, as posing increased risk to New Brunswick. “The UK variant is already in 30 different countries including Canada–in three different provinces–and we need to take additional measures to prevent these strains from reaching New Brunswick,” she said.
And while COVID surges in many parts of Canada and the US, travel to New Brunswick nearly doubled over the holidays, according to numbers presented by the Premier on Tuesday.
“We typically have 4,000 to 5,000 people in self-isolation for travel,” said Higgs. “Yesterday we had 6,430 people in our province self isolating due to travel over the holidays. It was up as high as 8000.”
Higgs said the checks on isolating travellers would be increased.
ONE NEW EXPOSURE NOTIFICATION FOR MONCTON
The province issues potential public exposure notifications when public health officials are not certain they can contact all people who may have been exposed at a certain location and time period. The following exposure notifications were issued for the Moncton area on Monday and Tuesday:
- Miss Cue pool hall from Dec. 31 at 11pm to Jan. 1 at 1:30am (495 Mountain Road, Moncton)
- Moncton Squash Club on Dec. 29, 30 and 31 between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. (71 Essex St., Moncton)
- Bo Diddley’s Lounge on Dec. 31 and Jan. 1 between 2 p.m. and 4 p.m. (285 Collishaw St., Moncton)
