Nova Scotia Has No Plans To Close Border With New Brunswick
HALIFAX — Nova Scotia will not be closing its borders to New Brunswick. In fact, the province’s top doctor says it’s perfectly safe to travel there despite recent Covid-19 outbreaks.
Dr. Robert Strang, Nova Scotia’s Chief Medical Officer of Health, told Nova Scotians Wednesday there’s no significant risk of Covid-19 spreading from hotspots in New Brunswick.
Nova Scotians have been casting wary eyes towards their neighbour since late last week, when Covid-19 cases began to spike back up in that province. As of today, New Brunswick is reporting 90 active Covid-19 cases, mostly clustered in Moncton and Campbellton. Nova Scotia, by contrast, has four.
In a news conference Wednesday, Strang pointed out that health officials have been able to trace all the Covid-19 cases in New Brunswick back to the facility, family, or social groups.
“From my conversations with New Brunswick… there’s nothing that would suggest that there’s general exposure in the community,” Strang said. “Every case they’re seeing they’re able to carefully link back and show it was exposure to the known group.”
Strang said the Covid-19 spread New Brunswick is seeing now is spread health officials expected. If one member of a household has the virus officials expect their entire household to get it. The new cases still cropping up, Strang said, fit into that pattern.
That means that, despite high case counts, there is no evidence of the dreaded “community spread” in the province.
“There’s nothing to suggest that if you or I travel to Moncton or Campbellton we are putting ourselves at increased risk at this time,” Strang said.
As always, Strang said his team will continue to monitor the situation but he stressed that there are no immediate plans to shut the border down.
He said he would only consider closing the provincial border to New Brunswick if he thought there was “significant risk” of Covid-19 spreading into this province.
Premier says no to business requests for fewer restrictions
As Strang assured Nova Scotians an open border with New Brunswick is safe, Premier Stephen McNeil shut down calls from the business community to relax some health measures within the province.
Organizations like the Halifax Chamber of Commerce have been asking government to ease some social distancing rules and gathering limits as a way to help struggling businesses bring in more revenue.
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McNeil said the recent Covid-19 outbreaks in New Brunswick highlight how quickly the virus can spread, even when cases have been consistently down. He said Nova Scotia’s health measures have been working and he has no desire to change them.
“I would strongly encourage [the Halifax Chamber of Commerce] to ask themselves this question: what happens if a second wave comes to their members? What happens if Dr. Strang and I have to sit here and say we’re closing businesses again? What would their members think of that?” he asked.
McNeil said he doesn’t believe measures like social distancing are that much of an inconvenience and asked businesses to be mindful of public safety.
“While you may not have the same benefit to your bottom line as you would have before a year ago, we need to be mindful of the fact that this virus is still here,” McNeil said.
He said he couldn’t, “in good conscious” loosen health restrictions he knows are working and said the government “will be consistent on that until we have a vaccine and see the way we can function with the virus.”
Strang argued, as he has many times in the past, that good public health policies are also good economic policies — and that preventing a possible second wave will be far more helpful to businesses than fewer restrictions right now.