Daily briefing
I hadn’t expected to do a COVID-19 report today, but there was a surprise briefing with Premier Stephen McNeil and Dr. Robert Strang (sporting what I believe was a Bugs Bunny tie), so I thought I’d catch you up.
This will not be lengthy, because the point of the briefing — and the subject of nearly all the questions from reporters — was the one new case of COVID-19 announced today.
Dr. Robert Strang, NS COVID-19 Update, 6 July 2020
Interestingly, given how stingy Strang and McNeil have generally been with case details, we learned quite a bit about this latest one — which brings active cases in the province to four and total cases to 1,065.
Both Dr. Strang and the premier referred to the individual as a “he,” and we learned he was an American with a student visa to “go to school” in PEI. He flew into Toronto, where he was screened by Canadian Border Services agents, then permitted to board a domestic flight to Halifax, where he arrived on June 26.
Rather than self-isolating, as required, for 14 days, he was picked up by “people from PEI,” who drove him to that province, which he couldn’t enter because, according to the premier, he didn’t have the proper “form” filled out. He returned to Nova Scotia.
On Saturday, PEI reported a new case of COVID-19 — a young man in his 20s who had been to Nova Scotia where he was in touch with “someone who’d been in the United States.” PEI’s chief medical officer of health, Dr. Heather Morrison, called Dr. Strang to alert him that the individual from the States was still in Nova Scotia.
Public Health tracked him down and he tested positive and is now in quarantine under federal authority at an airport hotel in Halifax.
PEI has since reported two more cases of COVID-19 linked to this individual.
Strang said Public Health is now tracing his movements and contacts between June 26 and July 5, when he came to their attention.
The lesson here seems to be that Nova Scotia cannot rely on CBSA to monitor international visitors to ensure they self-quarantine for 14 days. Strang said Nova Scotia will now require visitors from outside the Atlantic Bubble to complete a form (to be made available on the government’s COVID website) providing an address at which they will be self-isolating and a phone number. Provincial officials will contact them daily for 14 days to ensure they are, indeed, self-isolating (and that they know what to do if they feel sick.) If three calls go unanswered (I’m not sure if this means three attempts on one day, or over three successive days), the police will be called to do an in-person check.
CBC reporter Michael Gorman pointed out that New Brunswick and PEI have already introduced such forms and wondered why Nova Scotia had not followed suit earlier.
The premier said Nova Scotia’s solution was to place information pickets at the border advising people of the need to self-isolate, but he didn’t explain why the province hadn’t felt it necessary to ask travelers for contact information.
Privacy concerns
This seems like a good point to note that Halifax-based privacy lawyer David Fraser has concerns about the information being gathered in PEI and particularly New Brunswick. He took to Twitter to explain the problems with New Brunswick’s form, which “requires a lot of sensitive personal information & only says: ‘This information we are collecting is for official Government purposes and will be treated as confidential information.'”
Fraser says:
‘Official government purposes’ is meaningless. And treated as confidential is super-vague. Confidentiality is not privacy. It should cite the lawful authority for the collection, what the purposes are, what gov’t department is actually collecting it, how long it’s retained, whether it is all mandatory, who also has access to it and for what purposes, and who to contact to exercise your access rights.
The Nova Scotian form is not yet available on the website, although McNeil said conservation officers on the border began collecting contact information from travelers today.
Perfectly legal
Asked how the American man had managed to “slip” across the border, Strang objected to the term and said the man in question was “legally allowed to get on a plane and fly into Halifax.” The problem is that he didn’t self-isolate.
Strang pointed out that legally, Canadians living outside the country must be permitted to return, as must those whose “immediate” family members are Canadian residents. In both situations, however, travelers are required to self-isolate.
Strang asked Nova Scotians not to simply assume that a visitor with an American license plate has not “done their quarantine.” “Don’t jump to conclusions,” was his advice. Instead, “welcome” people from outside the province and “talk to them respectfully” about public health rules.
Strang said his department is “urgently working on implementing a tracking system” for people coming into Nova Scotia from outside the Atlantic region, that IT specialists are working on a system that will see the information collected at the border flow to Public Health and that he’ll “have more on that very soon.” (I am going to head off all comments about Public Health’s ability to ensure a smooth flow of information, given the weeks it took to consolidate testing data, by saying, “I know.”)
Asked if travelers from outside Canada should be required to do their 14-day quarantine in the city in which they arrive, Strang said the logistics of holding hundreds, if not thousands, of people in the four hub cities (Toronto, Calgary, Vancouver and Montreal) where international flights terminate would be “challenging.” Strang said the “vast majority” of travelers are well and anyone exhibiting symptoms is detained.
In response to another question, Strang said that a) an Atlantic Canadian flying within Atlantic Canada would not be required to self-isolate upon arrival even if the plane were filled with passengers from outside the region and b) the evidence suggests air travel doesn’t increase your risk of catching COVID-19, however, wearing a mask is “vitally important” when on a plane, as is washing your hands and using alcohol wipes on surfaces like armrests and tray tables.
Masks
Strang ended by stating that opening the economy and the borders “inherently brings increased risk of COVID-19” and encouraging Nova Scotians to “please take this seriously.”
“We can’t relax, it’s not about going back to normal.”
Instead, he said, it’s about continuing to follow public health rules regarding physical distancing and handwashing and coughing and particularly, mask wearing. Strang noted that the wearing of non-medical masks in indoor situations where physical distancing cannot be assured — in stores, for example — is “one thing we can do a much better job on.”
Again, he didn’t rule out the possibility of making masks mandatory but he also said they were looking into ways retailers might assist them in encouraging mask wearing. (I’m assuming this means asking retailers to make masks mandatory, as they are already in salons and medical clinics.)
And that was today’s briefing.
Numbers
Total new cases: 1
Total cases: 1,065
Total hospitalized: 2 (cases considered resolved)
Total in ICU: 0
Total recovered: 998
Total deaths: 63
Total long-term-care facilities (LTCF) affected: 0
LTCF residents: 0
LTCF staff: 0
Total positive and negative tests to date: 56,178
Age range of patients: under 10 to over 90
Number of Epidemiologists in Dr. Strang’s department: 3
