Top Doctor Says N.B. Will Be Doing A ‘Dance’ Of Easing And Strengthening COVID-19 Measures
FREDERICTON – As New Brunswick reports no new COVID-19 cases for the sixth time in the last 10 days, the conversation in the province has inched towards the re-opening of the economy, as reflected in the provincial press conference Monday.
While five people are still hospitalized, including two in intensive care, 98 people have recovered. There have been no fatalities and the number of total cases has stayed at 118.
Premier Blaine Higgs said we won’t be ready to go back to normal until a vaccine is available, but the data is cause for hope.
“The fact that we’re continuing to receive positive results would reinforce our idea to look at getting back to a new norm, whatever that will be, it will be different than what we’re used to. Also looking at the economic recovery side, and then trying to balance this as we reintegrate into society,” said Premier Blaine Higgs.
With elective surgeries being postponed to ensure the system can handle COVID-19-related hospitalizations and to protect those that may be vulnerable to the virus, Higgs says the recovery plan is not just about economics. It’s also about ensuring the healthcare system gets “back to its original self and better, as we’ve learned through this process.”
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Dr. Jennifer Russell, the province’s Chief Medical Officer of Health, says the province’s recovery plan will be based partly on criteria being discussed at the national level. The province will incorporate what is identified as triggers at the national level on its own approach to ease or strengthen safety measures like physical distancing.
“We will make sure we have those conversations and make sure that we get things back up and running as soon as we can with all of those pieces of information in mind, knowing that, again, this will be a cyclical event,” Russell said.
Because neighbouring jurisdictions are likely to continue struggling with rising numbers of cases, New Brunswick’s leaders have to be ready to ease and re-impose measures “on very short notice.”
“So we’re going to be doing a dance, basically, where we lift measures and we put them back in place based on data and based on criteria that are being established at the national level around case counts and the types of cases that we see in the province, and the time frame around when we stop seeing an increase in numbers,” she said.
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While the criteria on what data will be used to determine when and how measures can be eased, each province will depend on their own number of cases, type of transmissions, and other data to figure out exactly what measures can be eased at a point in time in certain regions.
“Right now we’re trying to nail down a consistent framework so that we’re all singing from the same songbook. That way, when we do apply those measures individually in each province, then we can have our own discussions around what that looks like at a provincial level and then at a regional level,” Russell said.
Premier Higgs has said he hopes to see positive changes at the beginning of May. But those changes are unlikely to include the re-opening of the provincial borders for non-essential travel.
“[Border closure] will be one of the last things that would change,” he said, urging New Brunswickers to again explore the province this summer. “At this stage, any outside travel would require a quarantine coming back into the province.”
In the “coming days and weeks,” he says the government will look at allowing specific businesses to re-open if they can verify and validate physical distancing and other safety measures.
Higgs said the province wants to identify requirements that businesses will have to fulfill in order to reopen, including possibly providing a procedure that is approved by public health officials. The onus will be on the business operators to meet those guidelines, and the consequences of not complying would be either a fine or a shutdown.
“We’ll be providing that sort of path forward in the coming days and weeks,” the Premier said. “We just cannot allow any option, I guess, to loosen our current situation that would be to our detriment and we see an increase of cases because it can start so quickly if we don’t all continue to exercise good behaviour.”
Part of the consideration to restarting the economy is the re-opening of childcare facilities, as parents will be going to work, Higgs added.
The Premier also spoke about ensuring the province has the supplies it needs for essentials, even as export-import activities are affected.
“We had a discussion last week about food security. If we can ramp up our ability to grow more here in the province and have a greater level of food security, then let’s start down that path,” he said.
“We’re all in agreement. One thing we have here in this province….is we have lots of land and we need to make better use of it. So we can start to reduce our dependence, but it’s again not something you can do overnight. It’s something that you build a clear line target.”
He says the province has shown a unique ability to work through a crisis in a non-partisan way, “and that’s exciting.”
“We need to build our economic recovery in the same non-partisan fashion so it will continue to get better year-on-year, and it won’t be dependent on the election cycle,” he said.