N.B. COVID-19 roundup: 1 death, ICU and ventilator cases up, dashboard not done — yet

Another New Brunswicker with COVID-19 has died and the number of people requiring intensive care and a ventilator increased Tuesday, as the province draws closer to removing all COVID restrictions next week.

The latest death is a person in their 60s in the Saint John region, Zone 2. No information about them, such as whether they died from COVID or if they just tested positive for the virus when they died, whether they had any other underlying health conditions, or their vaccination status, has been released.

There are 99 people in hospital, down one from Monday, including 12 in intensive care, an increase of three. Five of them are on ventilators, up one.

Of those in hospital, 48 were admitted for COVID-19 and 51 were initially admitted for something else when they tested positive for the virus. Of the 12 in ICU, 11 are "for COVID" patients.

The seven-day average of COVID-related ICU bed occupancies jumped to nine Tuesday from six, while the seven-day average of hospitalizations increased to 94 from 91, according to the province's COVID-19 dashboard.

The dashboard won't end next Monday when all restrictions are lifted, as the province said it would. Instead, the dashboard will switch from a daily to weekly update for another three weeks, according to Department of Health spokesperson Bruce Macfarlane.

"Moving forward the New Brunswick COVID-19 dashboard will continue to be updated weekly, for the remainder of the month of March," he said in an emailed statement.

Macfarlane did not immediately confirm whether all of the same data will still be available.

Nor did he provide any details about what information will be made public as of April.

Last week, Green Party Leader David Coon called on the government to reverse its decision to drop the COVID-19 dashboard and provide less frequent updates.

He called the move "incomprehensible."

"Why government would want to plunge New Brunswickers into the dark on what's happening with COVID when they're about to lift all the Public Health measures is well beyond my understanding," he said.

The government announced its dashboard decision on Feb. 24, along with plans to remove all remaining COVID measures, including mask mandates and gathering limits, by March 14, when the emergency order ends.

"As restrictions are removed, the government will transition away from weekday updates on the COVID-19 dashboard," it said in a news release. "COVID-19 information will instead be shared in the communicable disease section of the Public Health website and reported on a weekly basis.

Part of transitioning to living with COVID-19 means a decrease in daily COVID-19 reporting, and the reallocation of our time and resources to other Public Health priority areas.- Bruce Macfarlane, Department of Health spokesperson

Jean-Claude D'Amours, the Liberal health critic and MLA for Edmundston-Madawaska Centre, has called maintaining the dashboard the "minimum" the government needs to do.

He said some people already miss the weekend updates. "So the government needs to stay transparent with COVID and providing accurate information on a regular basis and not keeping the New Brunswickers in the dark."

New Brunswick is moving forward with a decrease in regular COVID-19 reporting, "along with most of Canada," said Macfarlane.

"Part of transitioning to living with COVID-19 means a decrease in daily COVID-19 reporting, and the reallocation of our time and resources to other Public Health priority areas," he said, without elaborating.

Macfarlane did not say whether all of the data currently available on the dashboard will still be available through the communicable disease section of the Public Health website.

Asked about New Brunswickers who are still concerned about COVID-19 and want to see more data, not less, Macfarlane said, "The overall risks to individuals and the health-care system has been significantly reduced through vaccination and other successful population health measures, and we are now in a position to manage COVID-19 differently from previous surges and waves.

"Ongoing surveillance for COVID-19 will continue, so that we can continue to identify and locate COVID-19 cases in the province, and further monitor its overall presence and respond to elevated levels of risk."

That surveillance, Macfarlane has said, will include sentinel testing, or regular random testing of sample groups across a community.

"Public Health will also continue to provide guidance on how people can lower their risks as restrictions are removed, and as the level of COVID-19 changes within the community," he added.

Breakdown of hospitalizations, cases

Hospital capacity provincewide remains steady Tuesday at 90 per cent. ICU occupancy, meanwhile, has reached 77 per cent, up from 69 per cent.

Of the 12 people requiring intensive care, one is in their 40s, seven are in their 60s, three are in their 70s and one is in their 80s.

Three people in their 20s are the youngest hospitalized. There are also six people in their 30s, six in their 40s, six in their 50s, 17 in their 60s, 24 in their 70s, 19 in their 80s, and six in their 90s.

There are 573 health-care workers isolating across the province after testing positive for COVID-19. That's seven fewer than Monday. The bulk of them, 313, work for the Horizon Health Network, while 170 work for the Vitalité Health Network, and 90 for Extra-Mural and Ambulance New Brunswick.

Public Health confirmed 242 new cases of COVID-19 through lab-based PCR tests Tuesday, putting the active case count at 3,920, a decrease of 141.

An additional 540 people self-reported testing positive on rapid tests.

The regional breakdown of the PCR-confirmed cases includes:

Moncton region, Zone 1

• 79 new cases and 1,300 active cases

Saint John region, Zone 2

• 79 new cases and 913 active cases

Fredericton region, Zone 3

• 39 new cases and 885 active cases

Edmundston region, Zone 4

• 10 new cases and 193 active cases

Campbellton region, Zone 5

• Six new cases and 125 active cases

Bathurst region, Zone 6

• 19 new cases and 340 active cases

Miramichi region, Zone 7

• 10 new cases and 164 active cases

As of Tuesday, 50.4 per cent of eligible New Brunswickers have received their COVID-19 vaccine booster dose, unchanged from Monday, 87.3 per cent have received two vaccine doses, up from 87.2 per cent, and 92.9 per cent have received one dose, unchanged again.

A total of 743,879 PCR tests have been conducted to date, including 1,790 on Monday.

New Brunswick has had 40,312 cases of COVID-19 since the beginning of the pandemic, with 36,078 recoveries so far and 312 COVID-related deaths.

Horizon hospitals 'surviving under duress'

The new permanent president and CEO of the Horizon Health Network says hospitals are still having difficulties related to COVID-19.

The situation is better than it was during January's Level 3 lockdown, said Dr. John Dornan, but staff are still catching COVID and consequently unable to work.

The number of COVID patients in hospital is not high, he said, however, the number of staff off work due to illness is "much higher than usual."

"It means we're asking staff to work harder, so there is stress amongst us," he told CBC's Information Morning Fredericton Tuesday.

"We are surviving under duress."

As of Tuesday, 313 Horizon health-care workers were now off the job, isolating after testing positive for COVID-19, according to the dashboard.

Dornan, who was appointed the head of Horizon last week after serving in an interim capacity since last August, said there's been a spike in COVID cases in the community and in the health-care system since students returned to school.

"We are doing our best to get back up to speed in terms of providing ambulatory services, clinics, blood testing, imaging and surgeries," he said.

He's concerned another spike may happen after March 14, when all provincial COVID rules are lifted.

"Every time we reduce restrictions we increase exposure," he said.

That's why hospitals are maintaining strict practices, he said, such as reduced visitation, full masking and mandatory vaccinations.

"We are hoping that within our health-care facilities we can weather the storm."

Dornan noted that Horizon employees will still be subject to workplace isolation requirements for COVID after March 14. Anyone who tests positive will be off work for five or 10 days, he said, depending on staff availability.