Long A Pandemic Leader Nova Scotia Is Now A Covid 19 Hot Spot

The province has long been praised for handling the pandemic, but the daily number of cases of the highly contagious Omicron and BA.2 variants has been rising since late February. They have accelerated dramatically since the Nova Scotia government lifted most public health restrictions on March 21, including concentration limits and mandatory masks in most public places. “The fact that the number of people who are positive about this group continues to grow means that there is really a lot of virus out there,” said Dr. Lisa Barrett, an infectious disease physician and researcher at Dalhousie University in Halifax. Last Thursday, the latest weekly COVID-19 reporting date, the province announced an average of nearly 1,000 new cases daily, the highest ever since the pandemic began. Barrett said the lack of mandatory coverage rules in most environments combined with a large portion of the population without prior COVID-19 infection has made Nova Scotia particularly vulnerable. “All those people who were not really exposed before were infected, almost simultaneously, something we really wanted to avoid,” Barrett said. Also, despite high two-dose vaccination rates in Nova Scotia, booster intake was not as strong, Barrett said. Among Nova Scotia residents over the age of 18, only 63.9 per cent have received a booster dose, according to the county COVID-19 county board. Officials in Nova Scotia have emphasized that the focus should be on COVID-19 treatment and not on case numbers. However, experts point out that as the infections increase, it is certain that they will be hospitalized. “The problem is that when they go up, it’s too late,” says Tara Moriarty, an associate professor and researcher in infectious diseases at the University of Toronto. While the official new daily number of cases for Nova Scotia was around 1,000 last Thursday, Moriarty believes it is more than 10 times more. He has developed a public spreadsheet that uses modeling to provide a more accurate picture of the situation of COVID-19 in Canada. “Since we have really started doing far fewer tests, I and others are trying to develop methods that give us a sense of how many infections actually occur on a daily basis and how many treatments, for example, ICU admissions and deaths we can expect from them.” said Moriarty. He said data reporting is poor across the country, so it is difficult for people to accurately assess COVID-19 infection risk levels. “It’s really very serious,” he said. “And a lot of Atlantic Canada has been a lot worse in the last month than most of the other provinces.” This could be extended to North America. The New York Times monitors the number of COVID-19 cases for Canada and the United States and calculates per capita. According to its data, Nova Scotia has one of the highest per capita daily incidence cases in North America with 108 cases per 100,000 people. The US state with the most cases per capita is Alaska, with 28 per 100,000 people. Quebec has the same rate of 28 cases per 100,000 people, according to the Times.
Barrett believes Nova Scotia numbers are higher than in parts of the United States and Canada because of the volume of testing it does. «Νο. “We are looking,” he said. “And No. 2, we do a lot of quick tests and we can confirm them and people can report them.” Tara Moriarty, an infectious disease specialist and researcher at the University of Toronto, says New Scotland cases could be more than 10 times higher than officially reported. (Lisa Xing / CBC)

There are no plans to reinstate restrictions

Amid growing cases, officials said they had no plans to reinstate the restrictions. “I know a lot of people want to push the panic button [but] “I am nowhere near this button,” Prime Minister Tim Houston said on April 5. The prime minister said he was continuing to work with public health officials to monitor the situation. “I believe the Nova Scotians have the tools they need to stay safe,” he said. “I do not think it is necessary for the government to issue orders today, based on the information we have today.” Moriarty worries that people are not getting the right message, believing that because restrictions are no longer mandatory, these precautions are no longer needed. “They did not have as many people infected in January and early February, so there were more people who were vulnerable to infection once those measures were relaxed,” he said. To help better understand COVID-19 and eliminate misinformation, it regularly hosts public Zoom sessions in which anyone can participate. Barrett encourages people to do their part for COVID-19, and to follow in the footsteps of Nova Scotia for earlier success in the pandemic, which includes using a mask and limiting social contact. “If it has not been legislated or enforced, then I think we should just, for the next seven, eight weeks, pick up the loose and do it ourselves,” he said.

“We must not need commands”

Without restrictions, the province encourages people to do what they were asked to do earlier in the pandemic. “We still have to do what we can to curb the spread of COVID-19 and protect the people around us,” the province told CBC News. “We need to get vaccinated. We need to stay home when we are sick. We wear masks indoors. We keep our social circles small and consistent. And we use tests quickly. The pandemic is not over – and it should not be. they say how to do the right thing “.

title: “Long A Pandemic Leader Nova Scotia Is Now A Covid 19 Hot Spot " ShowToc: true date: “2022-12-10” author: “Darrell Smith”

The province has long been praised for handling the pandemic, but the daily number of cases of the highly contagious Omicron and BA.2 variants has been rising since late February. They have accelerated dramatically since the Nova Scotia government lifted most public health restrictions on March 21, including concentration limits and mandatory masks in most public places. “The fact that the number of people who are positive about this group continues to grow means that there is really a lot of virus out there,” said Dr. Lisa Barrett, an infectious disease physician and researcher at Dalhousie University in Halifax. Last Thursday, the latest weekly COVID-19 reporting date, the province announced an average of nearly 1,000 new cases daily, the highest ever since the pandemic began. Barrett said the lack of mandatory coverage rules in most environments combined with a large portion of the population without prior COVID-19 infection has made Nova Scotia particularly vulnerable. “All those people who were not really exposed before were infected, almost simultaneously, something we really wanted to avoid,” Barrett said. Also, despite high two-dose vaccination rates in Nova Scotia, booster intake was not as strong, Barrett said. Among Nova Scotia residents over the age of 18, only 63.9 per cent have received a booster dose, according to the county COVID-19 county board. Officials in Nova Scotia have emphasized that the focus should be on COVID-19 treatment and not on case numbers. However, experts point out that as the infections increase, it is certain that they will be hospitalized. “The problem is that when they go up, it’s too late,” says Tara Moriarty, an associate professor and researcher in infectious diseases at the University of Toronto. While the official new daily number of cases for Nova Scotia was around 1,000 last Thursday, Moriarty believes it is more than 10 times more. He has developed a public spreadsheet that uses modeling to provide a more accurate picture of the situation of COVID-19 in Canada. “Since we have really started doing far fewer tests, I and others are trying to develop methods that give us a sense of how many infections actually occur on a daily basis and how many treatments, for example, ICU admissions and deaths we can expect from them.” said Moriarty. He said data reporting is poor across the country, so it is difficult for people to accurately assess COVID-19 infection risk levels. “It’s really very serious,” he said. “And a lot of Atlantic Canada has been a lot worse in the last month than most of the other provinces.” This could be extended to North America. The New York Times monitors the number of COVID-19 cases for Canada and the United States and calculates per capita. According to its data, Nova Scotia has one of the highest per capita daily incidence cases in North America with 108 cases per 100,000 people. The US state with the most cases per capita is Alaska, with 28 per 100,000 people. Quebec has the same rate of 28 cases per 100,000 people, according to the Times.
Barrett believes Nova Scotia numbers are higher than in parts of the United States and Canada because of the volume of testing it does. «Νο. “We are looking,” he said. “And No. 2, we do a lot of quick tests and we can confirm them and people can report them.” Tara Moriarty, an infectious disease specialist and researcher at the University of Toronto, says New Scotland cases could be more than 10 times higher than officially reported. (Lisa Xing / CBC)

There are no plans to reinstate restrictions

Amid growing cases, officials said they had no plans to reinstate the restrictions. “I know a lot of people want to push the panic button [but] “I am nowhere near this button,” Prime Minister Tim Houston said on April 5. The prime minister said he was continuing to work with public health officials to monitor the situation. “I believe the Nova Scotians have the tools they need to stay safe,” he said. “I do not think it is necessary for the government to issue orders today, based on the information we have today.” Moriarty worries that people are not getting the right message, believing that because restrictions are no longer mandatory, these precautions are no longer needed. “They did not have as many people infected in January and early February, so there were more people who were vulnerable to infection once those measures were relaxed,” he said. To help better understand COVID-19 and eliminate misinformation, it regularly hosts public Zoom sessions in which anyone can participate. Barrett encourages people to do their part for COVID-19, and to follow in the footsteps of Nova Scotia for earlier success in the pandemic, which includes using a mask and limiting social contact. “If it has not been legislated or enforced, then I think we should just, for the next seven, eight weeks, pick up the loose and do it ourselves,” he said.

“We must not need commands”

Without restrictions, the province encourages people to do what they were asked to do earlier in the pandemic. “We still have to do what we can to curb the spread of COVID-19 and protect the people around us,” the province told CBC News. “We need to get vaccinated. We need to stay home when we are sick. We wear masks indoors. We keep our social circles small and consistent. And we use tests quickly. The pandemic is not over – and it should not be. they say how to do the right thing “.