NS COVID-19 Update for 3 June 2020

Daily briefing

Dr. Robert Strang announced one new case of COVID-19, which has been discovered (as you can see from today’s health zone map below) here in the Eastern Zone. Strang said the case was travel-related and the individual in question self-isolated upon returning to Nova Scotia, keeping their exposure to others to a minimum.

Asked when Public Health would begin publishing active case numbers rather than cumulative numbers, Strang said Nova Scotia’s numbers were so low — we have “effectively zero” active cases (we have five, four at Northwood) — publishing active case numbers would raise privacy issues so the province is not going to do it. He said this might change if the virus were to become more active.

Strang used his opening remarks to remind Nova Scotians to have “appropriate expectations” about going to restaurants or hair salons or other newly opened businesses on Friday. He says the experience will be very different, with measures in place to ensure adherence to distancing and hygiene rules. He also clarified that while you can share a table in a restaurant with people in your household bubble, you cannot share a table with people from outside the bubble, although you could, conceivably, sit at different tables, six feet apart, and speak to each other. (Just don’t discuss anything too personal, I guess.)

Strang said it is important, when going anywhere, to think about who you are going with, the setting you will be in and the rules that will apply. Everything, basically, is likely to take longer than it used to, and he asked Nova Scotians to be patient.

It is also “critically important,” he said, that if you are not feeling well, you don’t go out.

Numbers

Total new cases: 1

Total cases: 1,058

Total hospitalized: 3

Total in ICU: 1

Total recovered: 993

Total deaths: 60

Total long-term-care facilities (LTCF) affected: 1

LTCF residents: 3 (Northwood)

LTCF staff: 2 (Northwood)

Total positive and negative tests to date: 44,398

Age range of patients: under 10 to over 90

 

Northwood class-action

The premier was asked if, in light of the class action lawsuit filed against Northwood, he was prepared to call a public inquiry into the Halifax long-term-care facility’s response to its COVID-19 outbreak, the worst in the province, or to provide more funding so the facility can end the practice of double-bunking.

McNeil said the province had been working with Northwood prior to the outbreak and would continue to work with the facility “and all of our partners” as the worst of the first wave of the virus ends. He said there are “ongoing conversations” around funding for Northwood and then pointed to the recent deal struck with Shannex, the private long-term-care home operator, to add 23 beds to a facility in Bedford. (He initially said 32 beds, but corrected himself later in the press briefing.)

Asked if Northwood would face a reduction in its funding were it to switch from shared to private rooms, the Premier said the funding model would reflect “the bed configuration” (which I think is a “yes”).

Asked if he was concerned the province could be named along with Northwood in the lawsuit, the premier said the province’s lawyers will handle that, that he is focused on Friday which will be “a big day for Nova Scotians,” and getting the message out that COVID is still here and people must continue to follow the Public Health protocols.

 

Good neighbors

A reporter noted that the Halifax microbiology lab had done 700 tests for PEI and 400 for St. Pierre Miquelon and asked why the lab had done these tests, how much the other jurisdictions had paid for them and whether doing them had had a negative impact on the lab’s capacity to process Nova Scotian tests.

Strang said they did them as “good neighbors,” as St Pierre Miquelon doesn’t have lab capacity and PEI was having some problems with its lab. (Apparently, refusing to do diagnostic tests for neighboring jurisdictions during a pandemic is just not an option for us.) He said the tests were done on a cost-recovery basis and did not impact the lab’s ability to process Nova Scotian tests.

Premier McNeil stepped in to say they were happy to do the tests and noted that in his calls with his fellow Atlantic premiers they continue to look at ways to work together, particularly in the regional production of PPE.

 

Missing sectors?

Asked if any sector closed as a result of the Public Health order had failed to submit a reopening plan for Friday, Dr. Strang said all the plans were in, although not all had received final approval.

 

Schools and elections

Strang was asked (by different reporters) about plans for reopening schools and holding municipal elections this fall.

He said his department has been “very busy” getting ready for Friday after which they will focus on daycares (scheduled to reopen on June 15) and had yet to have a detailed conversation about schools or municipal elections.

He said they will begin by laying out some protocols for voting and reopening schools safely but said they must “allow time for the epidemiology to evolve” before making decisions.

 

Less is more?

Asked if he and Dr. Strang were considering scaling back their press briefings as the province reopens and active COVID-19 cases are in single digits, the premier didn’t seem anxious to end the three-days-per-week briefings and promised to give Nova Scotians “plenty of notice before we change.”

 

Riches

A reporter said that people (she didn’t name them but you kind of got the idea she wanted to — luckily she can now call the CRA CERB fraud snitch line) are “refusing to go back to work” because they’re earning more on the Canadian Emergency Response Benefit (CERB) than they do at their jobs. How, she asked the premier, were small businesses to deal with this?

The premier acknowledged that people earning $2,000 a month was a serious problem (that’s $24,000 a year, you know — a full 21% of the premier’s 2019 salary) then he got very stern and “strongly encouraged” people to go back to work because the CERB will end but “your hard work and effort” will “determine the future” of the business that employs you and “quite frankly, your long-term employment.”

Or as I heard it, “Your hard work and underpaid effort will, quite frankly, determine your long-term underpaid employment.”

I really hope there’s an economist out there collecting the data that shows how much CERB money has found its way into Nova Scotia’s economy and just how Nova Scotians have been occupying themselves since they were rudely deprived of the opportunity to keep the multinational company that owns Tim Hortons afloat.

I’m kind of salty today, in case you hadn’t noticed.

Maybe it is time to reduce the number of these briefings. Today’s ended because there were no more reporters on the line with questions.