There are four new confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the province today—all related to travel. There are three in the Western Health region and one in Central Health.

Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr. Janice Fitzgerald warns Newfoundland and Labrador is currently the only province in Canada without community spread and the virus is “on our doorstep…waiting to be let in. And we have to do all we can not to let that happen.”

She says most of the recent travel-related cases are variants of concern, which are becoming more prominent.

83 per cent of the cases identified in April were variants of concern. Nine were the B117 variant, five were the B1351 first identified in South Africa, one was the P1 variant first identified in Brazil, and one was the B1617 variant of interest identified in India.