Newfoundland and Labrador’s public health emergency comes to an end on Monday.
Health Minister John Haggie made the announcement at Wednesday’s COVID briefing. The end of the declaration coincides with the lifting of most of the remaining public health restrictions.
That comes despite an increase in COVID case numbers over the last two days. There were over 1,100 new cases from Tuesday and Wednesday—535 Tuesday and 596 Wednesday—and 20 people are in hospital.
Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr. Janice Fitzgerald says the cases that will result from the lifting of restrictions, based on the modelling they’ve seen, will be manageable.
As for a potential threshold for reintroducing measures, Dr. Fitzgerald says it’s hard to put a number on it because things also depend on the level of care a patient needs.
She thinks the hospital system would be able to handle between 40 and 60 cases, but the number of hospitalizations isn’t the only thing they look at, and at the moment it doesn’t look like capacity will be overwhelmed.
One of the COVID regulations not coming to an end on Monday is mandatory vaccinations.
The regulations, not to be confused with policy for government employees, came into effect on December 17 and encompasses employees that work in long term and personal care homes, daycares, fire departments, restaurants, and more.
That policy is set to expire on June first, and Health Minister John Haggie says the issue is under review.
He says the workers who it applies to have significant contact with the public. Where it is a regulation rather than a public health order they felt it would be best to review it at a later date. Haggie says that review may happen around Easter.
The COVID VaxPass comes to an end on Monday as well, but that doesn’t mean that people should delete it from their phones right away. Haggie says the VaxPass may still be required in other jurisdictions if people are planning travel.
