New Brunswick Public Health has identified the first cases of the U.K. variant of COVID-19 in the province.
Dr. Jennifer Russell, the province’s chief medical officer of health, said Tuesday that the lab has confirmed three cases of the variant.
Two of the cases are in the Saint John health region (Zone 2) and one is in the Miramichi health region (Zone 7), she said.
Russell said two of the cases are related to international travel, while the other is connected to travel within Canada.
“Now, more than ever, all New Brunswickers really must avoid unnecessary travel both within and outside the province,” said Russell. “No version of Covid-19 can move on its own, it needs people to move it.”
The new variant of the virus will put more pressure on the province’s health-care system and on its immunization rollout, she said.
“It is a really fast-moving strain. It infects people very, very quickly and in higher numbers,” said Russell. “When the strain gets into our population, it will be very difficult to get ahead of it and stay ahead of it with contact tracing and self-isolation as we have done in the past.”
With no variant, New Brunswick saw 567 cases of Covid-19 between January 5 and 28. If that were the U.K. variant, the province would have seen 1,004 cases in that period. That count would jump to 6,218 cases between January 29 and February 27.
Public Health announced 25 new cases of COVID-19 on Tuesday, which includes one in the Moncton health region (Zone 1).
The remaining 24 cases are in the Edmundston health region (Zone 4), including 19 new cases at the Villa des Jardins in Edmundston. The nursing home has 32 confirmed cases among residents and staff.
Meanwhile, a second nursing home in Edmundston, Manoir Belle Vue, currently has 55 confirmed cases. Russell said they are awaiting the results of mass testing conducted Monday.
Russell also announced that one case reported on Jan. 31 in Zone 2 has been confirmed as a false positive and has been removed from the provincial numbers.
The number of active cases has fallen to 267 with 30 more recoveries recorded since Monday, and 1,027 people are in isolation. Two people are in hospital and both are in intensive care.
Overall, New Brunswick has seen more cases in the last 31 days than in the last nine months of 2020, said Russell.
Out of 655 confirmed cases of Covid-19 in New Brunswick in January, 58 were related to out of province travel. Roughly half of that is for work, and roughly half are non-essential travel. There were four compassionate exemptions.
Not all of those 58 cases resulted in transmissions, but some of them led to “hundreds in primary and secondary infections that spread across the provinces.”
While movement across the border will always happen because essential services and goods need to move, Russell cautioned New Brunswickers not to travel if not essential.
“Don’t travel outside of the province or the country unless absolutely necessary,” she said. “The best thing we can do is stay home as much as we can.”
“It really only takes one case to start an outbreak,” she added.
Premier Blaine Higgs said essential travel would be scrutinized, too.
“We’re evaluating the essential need of every movement so that we can control the spread of not only COvid-19, but the variant that has now emerged,” he said.
Truck drivers, as well as commercial air, rail and marine operators entering the provinces will be required to undergo periodic testing.
On the immunization front, the reduction in the number of doses of vaccines delivered has a serious impact in slowing down the process, Higgs said. Public Health is looking into ways to manage with these reductions.
Currently, about one-in-four nursing home residents have received at least one dose of the vaccine. Out of more than 27,000 healthcare workers in the province, including staff in long-term care facilities, 10,136 have received at least one dose of vaccine.
Higgs said his government remains committed to get all long-term care residents vaccinated by March 31, though that’s “contingent on the federal government being able to deliver the number of vaccines we’ve been told we will receive.”
With files from Brad Perry.
Inda Intiar is a reporter with Huddle, an Acadia Broadcasting content partner.