Chief Medical Officer of Health Jennifer Russell opened yesterday’s briefing with news of another death from the effects of COVID-19. A person in their 80’s who lived in the Manoir Belle Vue special care home in Edmundston died with the disease, bringing the total deaths in the province related to COVID-19 to 24.
Manoir Belle Vue is the site of an ongoing outbreak, with a total of 83 confirmed cases in the home in residents and staff.
The outbreak at another long term care facility, Parkland Saint John, was declared officially over on Tuesday, after 28 days with no new cases of COVID-19. Parkland Saint John had 50 cases in total over the past two months, said Russell on Tuesday.
As for new cases in the province, the numbers were low again yesterday, with 3 new cases reported, 2 in the Edmundston region and 1 in Zone 1, the southeast region.
With recoveries, that leaves 130 active cases in the province, with 6 people in hospital, and two of those in intensive care.
Russell again echoed messaging around March break travel, asking people to stay close to home.
“I ask that everyone limits their travel during March Break to within their own health zone,” said Russell. “This will limit opportunities for the virus to spread and prevent a repeat of the outbreaks that we have experienced over the past month.”
Russell pointed to Newfoundland’s current outbreak as a warning of what New Brunswickers should be trying to prevent.
“Driven by the UK variant of the virus, an outbreak that started at a school sports tournament has resulted in more than 200 infections in less than a week,” said Russell, “and put the entire province of Newfoundland and Labrador in lockdown.”
Minister of Health Dorothy Shephard gave an update on vaccination progress at yesterday’s briefing, saying that about 45% of health care staff in the province have received at least their first dose of a vaccine.
There are now just over 7500 people fully vaccinated in the province. And just over 6100 people are waiting on their second dose.
Since the last update a week ago, the province has administered about 2500 more shots of vaccine, and received delivery of another 975 doses from the federal government.
Shepard said that New Brunswick is due to start receive nearly tens times that amount each week.
“We are expecting a shipment of 8190 doses of Pfizer BioNTech this week,” said Shephard. “And we then expect 9360 doses of Pfizer vaccine weekly through April.”
Shephard said that more information about the revised rollout for vaccinations in New Brunswick would be shared later this week.
DROP IN TESTING NUMBERS
Testing numbers in the province have dropped recently, with the 7-day average now sitting at about 1000 tests per day, about half of the average from two weeks ago. Neither Shephard nor Russell expressed concern about the drop in tests when asked at Tuesday’s briefing.
Russell said that the threshold for concern would be 3000 tests per week. The lowest number of weekly tests since November was right around Christmas, when weekly testing dropped to about 3400 tests. At the time, Russell expressed concern that testing numbers were too low.
ATLANTIC UPDATE
In Nova Scotia, the province announced 3 new cases of COVID-19, all related to travel outside of Atlantic Canada. The province has 12 active cases of COVID-19.
In Newfoundland, the outbreak continues in the eastern region of the province, with 7 new confirmed cases Tuesday, and 25 presumptive positive cases. There are 297 confirmed cases in the province.
PEI reported no new cases of COVID-19 on Tuesday. The province has just two active cases of COVID-19.