Province records 9 COVID-related deaths, changes the way it reports hospitalizations

New Brunswick has recorded nine more COVID-related deaths and has 78 people in hospital because of the virus, according to COVIDWATCH, the government's replacement for the COVID-19 dashboard, launched Tuesday.

The new weekly reports on the coronavirus website include data up to and including the previous Saturday.

Although the hospitalizations between March 27 and April 2 appear to have dropped from the 142 reported last Tuesday, people who are initially admitted to hospital for another reason and later test positive for COVID are no longer included.

Only those hospitalized for COVID are counted.

The combined total is actually 178 — an increase of 36, Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr. Jennifer Russell told CBC.

"Hopefully [people] won't misunderstand the information because I'm making sure that people understand there has been a change," she said.

This is to "align" with the reporting practices of Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador, Russell said.

The province is also "focusing on the disease activity," she said.

New Brunswick is now facing the threat of a new Omicron subvariant called Omicron XE, which is a combination of Omicron BA.1 and BA.2, said Russell. This type of combination is known as a "recombinant" variant.

It's 10 per cent more transmissible than BA2, which is 60 per cent more transmissible than BA1, she said, urging everyone who is eligible to get vaccinated.

Omicron XE was first detected in the United Kingdom on Jan.19 and has been confirmed in at least 600 cases since then, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

New Brunswick saw an increase in the number of hospital admissions for COVID-19 this week (78) compared to last week (47), a summary on the web page states.

The number of active hospitalizations is up by 12.

Nine people require intensive care.