N.B. COVID-19 roundup: Province to provide update on virus and return-to-school, child care plan
CBC
The province will provide an update on COVID-19 this afternoon, as well as its winter plan for returning to schools and child-care centres in the new year.
Education and Early Childhood Development Minister Dominic Cardy told the legislature this morning the government is looking at how to keep schools open, but may have to "move toward online learning if we have to, despite all the drawbacks that entails."
"We're looking at a situation here ... that is, in many ways, what we feared would come toward us in March of 2020."
New Brunswick announced its first three confirmed cases of omicron on Monday — one in the Moncton region, Zone 1, and two in the Miramichi region, Zone 7.
They are linked to the recent outbreak at St. Francis Xavier University in Antigonish, N.S., Dr. Jennifer Russell, chief medical officer of health, said.
No additional cases were announced Tuesday, but there are four other cases in Zones 1 and 7 that are directly linked to the confirmed three and presumed to be Omicron, Russell said.
Officials "fully expect" more in the coming days, she said. Omicron is at least 30 per cent more transmissible than the delta variant, and its doubling time is roughly every two days.
Cardy and Health Minister Dorothy Shephard will participate in the 2:30 p.m. news conference, which will be livestreamed here on CBC New Brunswick's website. It will also be available in French on the government's YouTube channel.
New Brunswick recorded two more COVID-related deaths and 109 new cases of COVID-19 on Tuesday.
Forty-four people are in hospital with COVID-19, including 14 in intensive care. Six of them are on ventilators.
There are now 1,051 active cases of COVID-19 across the province.
As of Tuesday, 82.4 per cent of eligible New Brunswickers are fully vaccinated against COVID, 88.7 per cent have received their first dose, and 9.6 per cent of those eligible have received a booster dose.
New Brunswick has had 9,813 confirmed cases of the virus since the beginning of the pandemic, with 8,616 recoveries so far and 144 COVID-related deaths.
A total of 582,904 tests have been conducted to date, including 2,556 on Monday.
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