Public Health is reporting another COVID death in the Edmundston region – a person in their seventies. It is the third death in the region this week. The latest death brings the COVID death toll to 33 since the beginning of the pandemic over a year ago.
Public Health is also reporting 19 new cases since yesterday – 15 of theme in the Edmundston region. Two of the cases are in the Fredericton River Valley region – and one each in the Moncton and Saint John regions.
Ten people have been listed as recovered since yesterday. Today’s active case count sits at 149 including 5 here in the Saint John region. There are 20 people in hospital with 13 of them in intensive care.
Chief Medical Officer of Health – Dr Jennifer Russell – says the new variants of the virus have changed the pandemic. Russell says Public Health will now assume all positive cases are the variants.
Russell says because of increasing case numbers with 16 cases identified in the Edmundston region as community transmission – and the impact on the health system in the area – Edmundston and Upper Madawaska region will go into LOCKDOWN tonight at 11:59.
And Health Minister Dorothy Shephard says they are watching the Saint John and Fredericton River Valley regions closely. She says there are presumptive variant cases in both regions.
