Seven people are in hospital and another 731 confirmed COVID cases are being reported in the province today, 502 of which are since yesterday, and 229 connected to swabs collected in the week after Christmas.

Three of the seven are in ICU.

517 cases are in Eastern Health, 44 are in Central Health, 64 in Western Health and 85 are in Labrador-Grenfell Health.

There are 6,443 active COVID cases in the province.

Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr. Janice Fitzgerald says the province’s high vaccination rate is helping to prevent hospitalizations despite high case counts.

She cautions however, “we are not quite out of the woods,” since hospitalization rates tend to rise later in the outbreak and based on trends in other jurisdictions, “we really need another week or so to see that.”

Fitzgerald asks people not to read too much into daily case counts, adding that pandemic response this time around is different, because the virus is different – with high transmissibility rates and a shortened incubation period.

Instead of obliterating the curve through containment, the goal is to flatten it.

Therefore the response to the fast-moving virus is concentrating on reducing the importation of illness, increasing testing in long-term are homes, and by administering boosters to adults and vaccinating children aged 5 to 11.