Infectious disease expert calls N.B. plan to lift restrictions 'risky' - HalifaxToday.ca

As of midnight, COVID-19 restrictions will lift in New Brunswick, eliminating mask mandates, provincial border controls and gathering limits in that province.

However, a local infectious disease expert believes the move is coming too soon.

"Clearly we don't have a lot of cases in the Atlantic right now, but we haven't quite hit our vaccination targets yet," said Dalhousie University's Dr. Lisa Barrett.

"I don't expect catastrophe, but do I think it's necessary to get rid of all masks in all places all the time, and to open up with other measures at the same time? It's probably a little more risky than I was expecting."

New Brunswick Premier Blaine Higgs had said pandemic restrictions would only lift when 75 per cent of the province's eligible population had received both doses of COVID-19 vaccine, however as of Friday, only 66.7 per cent of those 12 and older are fully vaccinated.

Barrett says mask requirements are a cheap and easy way to reduce transmission of the virus, and she doesn't see the advantage of getting rid of them at this stage.

"This really isn't just a common cold, there are a lot of people who have, even after a mild infection with COVID, some long term side effects," she told NEWS 95.7 fill-in host Todd Veinotte.

Although Barrett isn't necessarily expecting cases to surge out of control in our neighbouring province, she said removing restrictions could result in people unnecessarily contracting COVID-19, especially as the more transmissible Delta variant spreads throughout the country.

"We're not at vaccine targets, vaccines aren't perfect and we don't know exactly what the virus does," she explained. "I just think it's a little fast, and don't forget, these experiments, when they go wrong, they're not cases, they're people."

"That means somebody else that's out there is going to have potentially longer term effects from this or get severely ill," Barrett added. "So if we have easy things that we can keep doing that still allow us to socialize, and still allow us to go out and still allow the economy to open, why would we get rid of them right away? I don't understand that part."

Nova Scotia tracks its vaccination rate differently than New Brunswick. While our neighbours calculate how much of their eligible population has received the shots, we keep count of how many in our overall population have been immunized. COVID-19 vaccines have not yet been approved for those under the age of 12.

As of July 30, 76 per cent of Nova Scotians have had one or more doses, while 62.5 per cent are fully vaccinated.

Our province's chief medical officer of health has said more restrictions will be lifted  here once 75 per cent of our entire population has had both doses of vaccine. 

In Nova Scotia, there have been 4,200 cases from March 15 to July 27, 2021. Of those:

• 28 (0.7 per cent) were fully vaccinated
• 235 (5.6 per cent) were partially vaccinated
• 3,937 (93.7 per cent) were unvaccinated

There were 254 people hospitalized. Of those:

• 2 (0.8 per cent) were fully vaccinated
• 28 (11 per cent) were partially vaccinated
• 224 (88.2 per cent) were unvaccinated

Twenty-seven people died. Of those:

• 1 (3.7 per cent) was fully vaccinated
• 3 (11.1 per cent) were partially vaccinated
• 23 (85.2 per cent) were unvaccinated

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Infectious disease expert calls N.B. plan to lift restrictions 'risky' - HalifaxToday.ca
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