There are encouraging trends on the COVID front in this province – however – based on another trend – some of the good news may be offering a false sense of security.
The daily case count has been low since Valentine’s Day. The number of active cases has been dropping. As of yesterday – the Edmundston region – formerly a COVID hot spot – was down to 56 active cases – the Moncton region reported 6 active cases – the Saint John and Bathurst regions with one active case each while the Fredericton River Valley – Campbellton – and Miramichi regions didn’t have a single active case.
The number of people recovered has been climbing to 1335 as of yesterday while the number of people in hospital has dropped to just two.
The trend that has troubled Public Health officials in the past is the number of daily COVID tests being performed has dropped to under 1000 through most of the period since February 14th. Chief Medical Officer of Health – Dr Jennifer Russell – has mentioned on more than one occasion “we must remain vigilant” especially with new highly contagious variants of the virus. Six cases of the U-K variant have been confirmed in New Brunswick in the past three weeks.
Russell has been urging people with any of the symptoms of COVID to get tested – don’t assume it is a cold or allergies.
