P.E.I. reports 2 new coronavirus cases on Sunday

Prince Edward Island is reporting two additional cases of the novel coronavirus on Sunday, bringing the total number of active cases on the island to five.

The province’s chief public health officer, Dr. Heather Morrison, has stressed that the five new cases are not seasonal residents of P.E.I. and all predate the newly established Atlantic bubble.

All are related to travel outside of the province, Morrison said at a briefing on Sunday.

On Saturday the province reported that one of the confirmed cases was an essential worker who travelled outside of Atlantic Canada.

The other two cases are a 20-year-old who travelled to Nova Scotia and then had contact with someone who had recently travelled to the United States, and a woman in her 20s who is a close contact of the 20-year-old.

The woman in her 20s is a worker at Whisperwood Villa in Charlottetown.

Morrison said 129 residents and 140 workers Whisperwood Villa were tested on Saturday. All results came back negative, she confirmed, although they will be re-tested later this week.

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Anyone who was a visitor to the long-term care facility on June 30 is being contacted in order to arrange for testing.

The two additional cases announced on Sunday are both men in their 20s.

They were close contacts of the 20-year-old man that tested positive on Saturday.

“At this point, there is no evidence of community spread of COVID-19 in our province,” said Morrison.

“The risk of community transmission of COVID-19 in our province remains low.”

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She credited the team of contact tracers for the province’s swift response to the new cluster of cases.

Morrison added that 406 tests were completed on Saturday, a record number of tests for P.E.I. in a single day.

Sunday marked the third full day of the Atlantic travel bubble, which permits interprovincial travel between Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland and Labrador without self-isolation.

However, restrictions remain in place. You can learn what you need to do ahead of time for each province here.

P.E.I. Premier Dennis King said the new cases were not likely to bring an end to the newly established bubble.

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At the press update on Sunday, King said he had not talked to any of his fellow Atlantic premiers since the announcement of new cases on Saturday.

“As of right now, we will continue working on the situation here we have at hand,” said King.