THE ATLANTIC BUBBLE IS THE LATEST CASUALTY OF RISING NUMBERS OF COVID CASES ACROSS CANADA, AS NEWFOUNDLAND AND LABRADOR AND P.E.I. PULLED OUT OF THE ARRANGEMENT ON MONDAY.
P.E.I. and N.L. exit coronavirus arrangement
OTTAWA • The Atlantic bubble is the latest casualty of rising numbers of COVID cases across the country, as two provinces quit the pact on Monday.
Both Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland and Labrador pulled out of the bubble arrangement that has been operating since early in the pandemic. The provinces require anyone coming from outside to quarantine for 14 days, but anyone travelling between Prince Edward Island, Newfoundland, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick had been left exempt.
That will end this week. Anyone coming to the two provinces will need prior approval unless they are a resident and, regardless of whether it is home, they will have to quarantine for two weeks.
Newfoundland and Labrador Premier Andrew Furey said his province would implement a two-week “circuit break” restricting travel from outside.
He said he was doing this to ensure COVID cases remained low and schools and businesses in the province were not forced into restrictive lockdowns.
“We must be responsive now and address this situation today,” he said. “The circuit break means that all travel to and from the province must be only for essential reasons.”
The bubble concept has worked well for the provinces, with them seeing only small numbers of cases. But New Brunswick reported 15 new cases Monday and Nova Scotia saw 11 new people diagnosed with COVID-19.
Furey said as he saw new cases increase it was setting off alarm bells and he needed to take this step to ensure schools, hospitals and longterm care homes remained protected.
New Brunswick Premier Blaine Higgs said he would not be making the same step to restrict travel, but cautioned that people should only be travelling for essential reasons and should mostly be staying close to home.
“Now's not the time to travel to other areas, or to do your holiday shopping. We need to shop local,” he said.
The increase in cases in Atlantic Canada is dwarfed by growth in western provinces. Alberta announced 1,549 new cases Monday after seeing 1,584 cases on Sunday. Manitoba set a new record for that province Monday, with 543 new cases and seven new deaths from the virus.
Alberta, the only province without a mask mandate, was expected to bring in new restrictions on Tuesday. The province's chief medical officer of health, Deena Hinshaw, said the province's contact-tracing system was overwhelmed with new cases and would not do any tracing on people if they didn't reach them within 10 days of their diagnosis.
“We must focus on looking forward and using our contact tracers to where they will have the most impact.”
She said the virus was picking up speed in the province and was beginning to swamp hospitals.
“This is like a snowball rolling down a hill, growing faster and larger.”
There was more promising vaccine news on Monday as a candidate vaccine from Oxford University and pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca showed results that revealed it was up to 90 per cent effective in preventing the virus.
Canada has ordered 20 million doses of that vaccine, and has large deals in place from Moderna and Pfizer who have already shown promising results.
Some countries have indicated that their citizens could begin receiving vaccines in December. Health Minister Patty Hadju said the government was working to ensure Canada would be ready to administer the vaccines, as soon as they are ready.
“All of our departments are working r i ght now, round the clock actually, on making sure that we have a concrete plan with the provinces and territories that we are ready to deploy the vaccines as soon as they arrive on Canadian soil, and I'm confident that we'll be able to do that.”
As the Atlantic provinces restrict travel, people were still arriving from around the world Monday on flights into major Canadian airports.
Hadju said the government has no plans to restrict those flights any further.
Currently, the number of people arriving from outside the country is restricted and anyone arriving must quarantine for 14 days to ensure they have no symptoms.
Hadju said she has heard no concern from provinces that the system isn't working and she is confident there have been few cases related to travel since the restrictions were put in place.
“It in fact has demonstrated a very low rate of importation and I've worked extensively with provinces and territories to make sure those quarantines are being followed.”
Still, t he government is recommending against all non- essential t ravel. Foreign Affairs Minister François-Philippe Champagne said Monday that people should think seriously before leaving the country because the government won't be coming to get them if things go badly.
“We're not going to do another repatriation. People should be thinking twice about whether they have insurance coverage, where they're going, what's the COVID situation,” he said. “If COVID has taught us anything over the last six to nine months, is that things can change rapidly and dramatically.”
THIS IS LIKE A SNOWBALL ROLLING DOWN A HILL.