Vaccine lottery, mask mandate: N.B. opposition leaders float ideas to address COVID situation

The leaders of two New Brunswick opposition parties say the premier needs to take action to address the province’s “worrisome” COVID-19 situation.

Melanson says a mask mandate in the hardest-hit regions or vaccine lottery could be ways to help keep people safer, but says he wants guidance to come from Public Health.

“The premier and Public Health need to reassess the entire situation and come up with a new plan,” he says. “Either new restrictions, which is the stick, or a carrot, which is some sort of incentive for people to get vaccinated… Fully vaccinated.”

“The number of people getting vaccinated is not moving ahead fast enough,” he says.

Green Party Leader David Coon says action is needed quickly.

“I would like to see some of the public health measures reinstated, particularly masking in public spaces indoors and an extension of vaccine mandates for congregate settings where you’ve got large numbers of people in enclosed spaces,” he tells Global News.

Coon also wants people who are unvaccinated and visiting from outside the regional bubble to have to undergo self-isolation upon arrival in New Brunswick.

People’s Alliance Leader Kris Austin says while he’d be open to some form of incentive for people to get vaccinated, he wouldn’t support a mask mandate and another state of emergency at this point.

“If you see numbers start to increase in hospitalizations where it gets to a point of concern, then some measures may have to be revisited,” he says.

The current outlook

Both Melanson and David Coon took to Twitter Monday to express concerns about the situation.

On Monday, Public Health reported 58 cases of COVID-19 since Saturday with 30 of those in the Moncton region.

In a news release, the province says 89 per cent of the 340 cases since July 1 have been people who are not fully vaccinated.

There are three people now in hospital with the virus, though deputy chief medical officer of health Dr. Cristin Muecke says two of them are “doing very well and could even potentially be discharged today.”

With 173 active cases on Monday, that marks the second-highest number of active cases since the beginning of the pandemic.

348 cases was the peak as of January 25, and 168 cases were active April 5.

However, as of the April 5 mark, 14 people were hospitalized with 8 in intensive care.

The ‘trigger’

Premier Blaine Higgs wasn’t available for an interview Monday, but said August 18 “it’s not like there’s anything there that’s saying we want to revert back to masks.”

“Our trigger is, what are we seeing in hospitals?” he said then. “And if we see hospitals starting to become overcrowded, you can count on that will be a trigger that we’re going to react to.”

Dr. Muecke says they’re watching the situation very closely and want as many people as possible to get vaccinated to help prevent serious illness.

“That’s what we’re trying to avoid is a situation where the sheer number of infections will start to see an increase in hospitalizations,” Muecke tells Global News.

She says it’s “very good news” the province isn’t seeing many people becoming “seriously ill” and highlighted the fact that no one is in ICU.

But Muecke also acknowledged that larger numbers of cases “put a lot of pressure on our frontline public health system.”

“We really want to focus our efforts on getting as many vaccines in arms as we can,” she says.

Muecke says they’re watching the situation in other jurisdictions in Canada, the U.S. and around the world.

“We do know that COVID is not going away,” she says. “We also know that vaccine is our primary defense and that really restrictive measures are not sustainable over the long-term, so we really want to make sure our vaccination strategy is effective.”

Muecke also says unlike the mandatory order, the Public Health Act allows for restrictions to be imposed on individuals and on settings, such as workplaces or community setting.

She confirmed a health region does not count as a community settings.

“Wider population measures have involved the mandatory order,” she says.

“But from a Public Health perspective, we’re really imploring individuals to continue as many layers of protection as is feasible for them,” Muecke says.