New Brunswick COVID-19 trajectories 'difficult to predict' with Omicron, says province
CBC
New Brunswick has no modelling yet for new cases of COVID-19, hospitalizations, ICU admissions, or deaths, as it braces for the full impact of the highly transmissible Omicron variant.
Public Health is working with the Public Health Agency of Canada and other provinces and territories "to understand the ongoing impacts of COVID-19, its trends and trajectories and how to mitigate spread," said Department of Health spokesperson Bruce Macfarlane.
"However, trajectories remain difficult to predict given the evolution of variants of concern and variants of interest, particularly as Omicron was only first reported at the end of November," he said in an emailed statement.
Sixteen more cases of Omicron were confirmed in New Brunswick on Friday, bringing the total to 30.
Public Health is not reporting their location, but the first 14 confirmed cases are spread across the Moncton region, Zone 1, Saint John region, 2, Fredericton region, Zone 3, and Miramichi region, Zone 7, the Department of Health told CBC News.
"Many more" are expected, Health Minister Dorothy Shephard has said. "It's going to kick our butt."
The World Health Organization has warned Omicron is spreading across the globe at an unprecedented rate, confirmed in at least 77 countries.
Dr. Theresa Tam, Canada's chief public health officer, has said Omicron has "great spread potential" and cases are expected to "rapidly escalate" in the coming days.
Canada is a "few days or maybe a week" behind the United Kingdom, which Prime Minister Boris Johnson said Friday is dealing with a "tidal wave" of new infections.
Omicron is at least 30 per cent more transmissible than Delta, according to New Brunswick Public Health. That means it has the ability to generate an estimated 4.5 cases for every one Delta case in the province, said Macfarlane.
It also has a doubling time of roughly every two days, Public Health has said.
Other experts have suggested Omicron could be anywhere from 1.5 to six times as transmissible as Delta.
Earlier this week, Ontario's COVID-19 science table estimated the doubling time for the Omicron variant in the population to be every 2.8 days. That's enough for four cases to escalate into 2,048 over 28 days.
By contrast, it measured Delta to be doubling about once per month, or from four cases to eight in the same period.
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