The southern part of New Brunswick — Moncton, Saint John and Fredericton — remains in the orange alert level of the province’s COVID-19 recovery plan as of Monday.
Premier Blaine Higgs said Sunday that those regions were “are all on the cusp of moving to red in the coming days.”
At that same press conference, Dr. Jennifer Russell, the province’s chief medical officer of health, said “that decision will be made in the next day or two.”
Edmundston transitioned to the red phase at midnight. Twenty-four of 36 cases announced Sunday came in Zone 4, the Edmundston region.
Deputy Mayor Eric Marquis said case numbers that large were a bit surprising — but the move to the red phase wasn’t.
“It was not necessarily a surprise because we knew after meeting with Dr. Russell on Friday that we were in a precarious situation,” Marquis says in an interview.
The recent climbing cases there had businesses preparing for the worst, though.
Restaurants were already reverting to takeout or drive-thru only, Marquis says. Their dining rooms are forced to close in the red phase.
The New Brunswick Restaurant Association says that’s been a challenge for restaurants that didn’t offer delivery or takeout pre-pandemic.
Ken Judson, the association’s executive director, says they’ve tried to adapt as best as possible.
“I guess on the downside of that, we have some very large delivery chains, delivery operations that are charging atrocious rates to the restaurants to do this,” Judson says.
Aside from dining room closures, some notable changes also see gyms, salons, spas and entertainment centres forced to close in the red phase.
A new change in policy allows schools to remain open in the red phase unless there’s a positive case of COVID-19. Religious venues must move services to drive-in only and sports need to be halted entirely.
For business owners, it’s been a challenge to keep up.
“The old orange is the new red,” says Kaitlyn Bergeron, the owner of SoulFlower Salon Spa in Moncton. “It’s been really difficult to keep up with the process because things are ever-changing.”
She says it took “a lot of lobbying” to fight for policy to keep gyms and salons open in the orange phase.
“And we were successful,” Bergeron says. “Everyone that comes in says how safe they feel.”
But knowing the red phase could be in the near future for Moncton and the southern part of the province, Bergeron says pandemic has a tight grip on all businesses.
“The challenges that this has created as a business… it’s just insurmountable,” she says. “It’s just really frustrating because everything is unpredictable, and it’s impossible to plan for the future.”
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