COVID-19 has claimed the lives of five more people in New Brunswick and the number of people hospitalized due to the virus has increased in the past week, according to figures released Tuesday.
The number of new cases has decreased compared to last week, with the highly transmissible Omicron BA.5 and BA.4 subvariants now accounting for more than 90 percent of the most recent random samples sent for sequencing.
But the number of tests performed also decreased, the weekly report from COVIDWatch shows.
“We continue in a period of increased COVID activity at the moment,” said Dr. Yves Léger, acting medical director of health.
“It’s not unusual to see hospital admissions continue to rise. It’s what we call a lagging indicator.”
Cases usually rise first, followed by an increase in hospitalizations, Léger said.
Given the decline in cases this week, the next week or so will be telling, he said.
“If this trend continues, [it] it may mean we are headed for a period of declining activity.”
Deaths and hospitalizations
According to the province’s COVIDWatch report, the latest deaths for New Brunswick include one person in their 60s, two in their 70s and two in their 80s.
The death toll from the pandemic has now reached 443.
Forty people were newly admitted to hospital for COVID-19 between July 17 and 23, compared to 30 the previous week.
Among them there is one person in their 20s, three in their 40s, three in their 50s, eight in their 60s, seven in their 70s, 13 in their 80s and five in their 90s.
The number of active hospitalizations has also increased to 34, from 22. Three of the patients need intensive care, compared to one. These include two people in their 50s and one in their 60s.
The province only reports on patients admitted for COVID.
Horizon and Vitalité health networks, which also include patients who were initially admitted for another reason and later tested positive for the virus, report that they had 119 patients with COVID in the hospital as of Saturday.
That’s a nearly 42 percent jump from the previous week, when 84 people were hospitalized for or with COVID.
Seven patients are in intensive care, up from two.
Dr. Yves Léger, regional medical officer of health, continues to urge everyone to receive any dose of the COVID-19 vaccine for which they are eligible. (Pascal Raiche-Nogue/Radio-Canada)
According to the province’s report, the highest share of hospitalizations for COVID-19 is among people aged 70 to 89.
“People who are not protected by the vaccine continue to have the highest rate of hospitalization for COVID-19 and death,” he says.
A total of 53.1 percent of eligible New Brunswickers have now received their third dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, up 0.1 percent from last week after 607 shots were administered.
The two-dose rate remains unchanged at 88.3% after just 208 people took the plunge and the first-dose rate also remains stagnant at 93.3% with just 155 new injections.
A total of 1,967 new cases of COVID were reported last week, down from 2,324 last week and 2,465 the week before.
Of the new cases, 938 were laboratory-confirmed using PCR tests (up from 1,004), while the other 1,029 were self-reported by people who tested positive on rapid tests (up from 1,320).
Both tests are limited in New Brunswick to people with symptoms. PCR testing is also limited to certain groups of people who are considered to be at higher risk.
Last week, 5,408 PCR tests were performed, up from 5,905 from July 10 to July 16.
The random sampling of the most recent cases found 71 percent are Omicron BA.5 subvariant, 20 percent are BA.4 and nine percent are BA.2.
There are now 1,374 active PCR-confirmed cases across the province, down from 1,506 in last week’s report.
New Brunswick has had 71,479 confirmed cases of COVID since the start of the pandemic, with 69,662 cases considered resolved so far.
Public Health says next week’s update will be released on Wednesday instead of Tuesday, due to the New Brunswick Day holiday.
Hospitalizations in the Horizon, drop in Vitalité
Horizon has 90 active COVID-19 patients in the hospital as of Saturday, compared with 84 a week ago, its weekly dashboard update shows. The number of people needing intensive care has doubled to four.
The distribution of cases includes:
- Moncton Region, Zone 1 — .19
- Region of Sant Joan, Zone 2 — .40
- Fredericton Region, Zone 3-16
- Miramichi Region, Zone 7-15
Horizon does not provide details on which hospitals have COVID patients.
Vitalité had 26 hospitalized COVID-19 patients Saturday, down from 30, including three in intensive care, one more, its COVID-19 dashboard shows.
Campbellton Regional Hospital, in Zone 5, has the largest share, with eight, followed by Dr. Georges-L.-Dumont in the Moncton region, Zone 1, with five patients, including one in the ICU.
Tracadie Hospital in Zone 6 also has five patients with COVID, while Chaleur Regional Hospital in Bathurst, also in Zone 6, has four, including one in ICU, and Edmundston Regional Hospital, in Zone 4, also has four patients, including one. in the ICU.
There are more hospital units with COVID outbreaks this week: 26, compared to 22, Tuesday’s update shows.
Eighteen of them are at Horizon hospitals. Horizon officials did not respond to a request to provide details on which hospitals and units, but seven are in the Moncton Region, Zone 1, five in the Saint John Region, Zone 2, three in the Fredericton region, zone 3 and three. in the Miramichi region, Zone 7.
The other eight outbreaks are in Vitalité hospital units, compared with five the previous week, the dashboard shows.
The three new outbreaks include:
- The extended care unit of the Chaleur Regional Hospital, 4 West, and the obstetrics unit.
- Edmundston Regional Hospital Medical Unit.
The other outbreaks include: Dumont’s 4A General Surgery Unit; Tracadie Hospital Medical Unit and 2nd North Unit; Campbellton Hospital Geriatric Unit and Restigouche Hospital C-1 Continuing Rehabilitation Unit.
Fewer healthcare workers are off the job due to COVID compared to a week ago.
Sixty Horizon employees have tested positive, down from 88.
And 128 Vitalité employees have been removed from work after testing positive for COVID-19 or having contact with a positive case, as of Saturday. That’s down from 141 the previous week.