TORONTO —
New Brunswick has loosened some of its physical distancing measures in a new system that the premier says allows residents to socialize with individuals outside their immediate household as the COVID-19 pandemic continues.
New Brunswick Premier Blaine Higgs told CTV’s Your Morning that the introduction of ‘household bubbles’ allows a family in one house to choose one other household to spend time with, assuming that both agree to the arrangement and don’t have close contact with anyone else.
“It’s related to families that would interact in a normal way except you have to pick one. If you have multiple siblings it can create a little angst within the family unit. It is not going from one to another, it’s saying ‘OK, I’m going to connect with this sibling and this family and that will be my unit for the next couple of weeks,” Higgs said in an interview on Tuesday.
Higgs said the method can create social interaction without widespread risk of spreading the disease. He said it can also be applied to direct neighbours instead of families, but large gatherings are still banned.
“It’s just a way to start opening up family interaction, social interaction and try to get people working together again in a new way as we start to recover,” Higgs said.
The two-household bubble system is one of the first steps taken in New Brunswick to loosen public health measures meant to stop the spread of COVID-19.
“Some of the confusion around it is that ‘Oh, well I have four children so I’ll be in bubbles separately with each one of them’ and no, that’s not how the program works. If you choose a family then you both reciprocate, it’s not like you can choose somebody else and they choose somebody else — you’re together,” he said.
Until Friday, New Brunswickers were to self-isolate and only interact with members of their immediate household.
New Brunswick is also among four other provinces and territories that have recorded zero COVID-19 fatalities to date, including the Northwest Territories, Yukon, Nunavut and Prince Edward Island.
“My congratulations goes to so many people throughout the entire province, not only all of those central workers that have made this possible. There are people that have followed the compliance rules and stayed very closely guarded around the public health requirements, saying and reminding each other to stay focused on the compliance,” Higgs said.
As part of the first stage, parks and beaches have also been reopened, golf courses are back in business, universities and colleges can open parts of their campuses for students in certain circumstances, and religious services can be held again, as long as they are outdoors with physical distancing measures in place.
However, Higgs added that the easing of restrictions and the use of ‘household bubbles’ may be put on hold if the province sees a sudden spike in infections.
“We’re in a good position but we can’t lose this,” Higgs said. “We are expecting to see some increases with this opening — this is not to be unexpected, and we’re working with public health as we monitor that. But the worst thing that could happen right now is in terms of our own complacency…
“We’re not out of the woods [and] we won’t be out of the woods until there’s a vaccine.”
Higgs said his province has plans in place to “do kind of a SWAT testing program” should there be an increase in cases and hospital admissions.
“If we had three totally independent community transmissions over a period of time — I think it’s over a period of like six days — that would be a trigger to say ‘OK, we have isolated cases here in our province, we don’t have any source of tracking them, there’s an issue’,” Higgs said.
“How we manage that could cause us to regress in our opening guidelines and to move back,” he added.
There is no timeline for when phase two of New Brunswick’s recovery plan, which allows some business to reopen, will begin. Higgs said precautionary safety measures must be in place to ensure the safety of employees and customers.
“We have to be sure that they’re ready, so we will be working with businesses one at a time. They will show us or provide a plan to us how they’re going to meet the public health requirements, and we in turn would say ‘OK, that’s good to go’ or ‘No, you need to do something more,’ and then we’ll follow up with compliance and surveillance from our safety officers,” he said.
Higgs said he is “cautiously optimistic” phase one of the plan will be a success and that the province will be able to move into phase two in the coming weeks.
“We need to make sure that we exercise due diligence and we keep the COVID cases [at] zero,” he said. “Let’s not let this get away from us.”
HALIFAX – The Nova Scotia government says it could be months before it reveals how many people are on the wait-list for a family doctor.
The head of the province’s health authority told reporters Wednesday that the government won’t release updated data until the 160,000 people who were on the wait-list in June are contacted to verify whether they still need primary care.
Karen Oldfield said Nova Scotia Health is working on validating the primary care wait-list data before posting new numbers, and that work may take a matter of months. The most recent public wait-list figures are from June 1, when 160,234 people, or about 16 per cent of the population, were on it.
“It’s going to take time to make 160,000 calls,” Oldfield said. “We are not talking weeks, we are talking months.”
The interim CEO and president of Nova Scotia Health said people on the list are being asked where they live, whether they still need a family doctor, and to give an update on their health.
A spokesperson with the province’s Health Department says the government and its health authority are “working hard” to turn the wait-list registry into a useful tool, adding that the data will be shared once it is validated.
Nova Scotia’s NDP are calling on Premier Tim Houston to immediately release statistics on how many people are looking for a family doctor. On Tuesday, the NDP introduced a bill that would require the health minister to make the number public every month.
“It is unacceptable for the list to be more than three months out of date,” NDP Leader Claudia Chender said Tuesday.
Chender said releasing this data regularly is vital so Nova Scotians can track the government’s progress on its main 2021 campaign promise: fixing health care.
The number of people in need of a family doctor has more than doubled between the 2021 summer election campaign and June 2024. Since September 2021 about 300 doctors have been added to the provincial health system, the Health Department said.
“We’ll know if Tim Houston is keeping his 2021 election promise to fix health care when Nova Scotians are attached to primary care,” Chender said.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 11, 2024.
ST. JOHN’S, N.L. – Newfoundland and Labrador‘s chief medical officer is monitoring the rise of whooping cough infections across the province as cases of the highly contagious disease continue to grow across Canada.
Dr. Janice Fitzgerald says that so far this year, the province has recorded 230 confirmed cases of the vaccine-preventable respiratory tract infection, also known as pertussis.
Late last month, Quebec reported more than 11,000 cases during the same time period, while Ontario counted 470 cases, well above the five-year average of 98. In Quebec, the majority of patients are between the ages of 10 and 14.
Meanwhile, New Brunswick has declared a whooping cough outbreak across the province. A total of 141 cases were reported by last month, exceeding the five-year average of 34.
The disease can lead to severe complications among vulnerable populations including infants, who are at the highest risk of suffering from complications like pneumonia and seizures. Symptoms may start with a runny nose, mild fever and cough, then progress to severe coughing accompanied by a distinctive “whooping” sound during inhalation.
“The public, especially pregnant people and those in close contact with infants, are encouraged to be aware of symptoms related to pertussis and to ensure vaccinations are up to date,” Newfoundland and Labrador’s Health Department said in a statement.
Whooping cough can be treated with antibiotics, but vaccination is the most effective way to control the spread of the disease. As a result, the province has expanded immunization efforts this school year. While booster doses are already offered in Grade 9, the vaccine is now being offered to Grade 8 students as well.
Public health officials say whooping cough is a cyclical disease that increases every two to five or six years.
Meanwhile, New Brunswick’s acting chief medical officer of health expects the current case count to get worse before tapering off.
A rise in whooping cough cases has also been reported in the United States and elsewhere. The Pan American Health Organization issued an alert in July encouraging countries to ramp up their surveillance and vaccination coverage.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 10, 2024.
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