The first live COVID briefing in three weeks is just around the corner and there will be plenty of questions for those who call the shots as Newfoundland and Labrador grapples with a rising number of cases during what some medical officials see as a fourth wave. That wave, driven by the more transmissible Delta variant, has been prevalent in other parts of the country for some time.

Numerous advisories of potential exposure are out for the metro region and the west coast, and Public Health is recommending that three schools in the Roddickton area delay their opening to allow time to do contact tracing.

Dr. Monica Dutt, the Chief Medical Officer of Health for Western Health, says vaccination rates, in general, are good, but they would like to see them go higher.

She says the advisories are an indication that we have had decreased public health measures and now there are more opportunities for people who may have acquired the virus to transmit to others. Dutt says they’ve stated all along that the priority is to contain it and make schooling as safe as possible.

The briefing, which starts at 2 p.m., will be broadcast live on VOCM.

The owner of an accommodations business on the west coast is baffled as to why he has not been directly contacted by Public Health after his motel was included in yesterday’s explosion of advisories of potential exposure sites.

River’s End Motel on the North Shore Highway in Corner Brook is included in the list, which means people who were there during the “hot spot” period should get tested.

After hearing of the advisory last night, owner Noel Bennett tried to contact someone, eventually ending up on Health Minister John Haggie’s Facebook page. He is none the wiser today.

Bennett knows about 75 per cent of customers by name and feels that they should have been notified by Public Health.