N.B. COVID-19 roundup: Dashboard not done — yet
CBC
New Brunswick's COVID-19 dashboard won't end next Monday when all restrictions are lifted, as widely understood.
Instead, it will switch from daily to weekly for another three weeks, according to Department spokesperson Bruce Macfarlane.of Health
"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.
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.