Rising COVID-19 cases aren't a major concern, says Fitzgerald, but people should still get a fall booster
CBC
The latest coronavirus variant, BA.2.86, is working its way across Canada and into Newfoundland and Labrador, but an uptick in new cases is not a major concern, says the province's top doctor.
Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr. Janice Fitzgerald said Wednesday there has been a recent increase in the number of positive cases in N.L.
"It's not really even as high as what we saw in the spring. Our hospitalizations have been holding pretty steady," Fitzgerald said.
"It's not unexpected given what's happening elsewhere in the country."
According to the Health Department's most recent numbers, the seven-day average number of new cases on Aug. 26 was 5.29. A month earlier, on July 26, the seven-day average was 3.57. Without testing numbers, which the government stopped providing a year and a half ago, it's impossible to know the rate of confirmation, but hospitalizations have been holding steady in recent weeks at about one per day.
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Fitzgerald said the rise in cases across Canada isn't definitively linked to the variant, a descendent of Omicron, as numbers were starting to go up before its arrival.
"I think certainly we have a bit of waning immunity as well and so as you see immunity wane you're going to see, perhaps, infections go up and people are maybe starting to move back inside," she said.
"There's probably a few reasons why it's happening, but not unexpected."
Also expected is a rise in other respiratory illnesses as students go back to class, she said, because it typically happens at the beginning of every school year.
Fitzgerald's advice for parents is to keep their kids home if they're feeling sick until any fever disappears, and book appointments when vaccination programs are announced.
Right now there isn't a COVID-19 vaccine booster rollout plan for the fall, said Fitzgerald, as the province is still waiting to find out which boosters will be approved by Health Canada.
"Hopefully that won't take be too long, but once we get that information we'll be able to more definitively talk about the booster program," she said.
The flu vaccine program begins mid-October. Fitzgerald said she'd like to rollout the COVID-19 booster program around the same time.