N.B. government won't release key data used to decide COVID-19 restriction levels

The New Brunswick government refuses to make public the key COVID-19 data it uses to decide whether to loosen or tighten restriction levels  — the seven-day average of new hospital admissions.

CBC News has repeatedly asked the Department of Health in recent weeks to release the number, and whether it will be included on the COVID-19 dashboard.

"This information will not be added to the data provided by the New Brunswick COVID-19 dashboard," department spokesperson Bruce Macfarlane confirmed in an emailed statement.

No explanation was provided.

"The seven-day average criteria exists as an indication of when a risk assessment may take place," he said.

New Brunswick is slated to move to Level 1 of the COVID-19 winter plan, the least restrictive level, on Friday at 11:59 p.m.

Premier Blaine Higgs announced the decision last week, saying it was based on the advice of Public Health.

Dr. Jennifer Russell, chief medical officer of health, who presented modelling during the announcement, said there will be a "bump" in hospitalizations following the move, but they will be "manageable."

Hospitalizations — the total number of people currently in hospital — is not the same as new admissions.

New admissions are "an important indicator" of COVID's spread in the province, Russell has said, especially now that it's impossible to get an accurate case count, given the limited use of PCR tests and reliance on people self-reporting positive rapid test results.

The average of the number of people in hospital and in intensive care over the previous seven days are both available on the dashboard. Daily new admissions and the seven-day average of new admissions are not.

There is a way to figure it out using the data available on the COVID-19 dashboard, if you know where to look, are willing to do some math and to keep track over time.

You need to calculate the day-over-day difference in total hospitalizations to date and the daily difference in current hospitalizations, add those together to get the new daily admissions, then add the new daily admissions figures for seven days together and divide by seven.

But that only works if Public Health considers all new admissions — including people hospitalized "for COVID-19" as well as those hospitalized "with COVID-19," when making this calculation.

Macfarlane said the "seven-day averages for hospitalizations" include both.

How to calculate new admissions

To calculate new daily hospital admissions, you need to find "hospitalizations" on the dashboard. That's the total number of exits from hospital to date, both discharges and deaths. As of Tuesday, it's 1,146.

You also need this same figure from the previous day (1,126) to calculate the difference (20).

Next, you need the current number of people in hospital, (101) and the same figure from the previous day (112) to calculate the difference (-11).

Then you add those two figures together (20 + -11) to get how many people were admitted to hospital that day (nine).

To get the seven-day average, you would add the new admissions figures from each of the seven days together and divide by seven. As of Tuesday, it's nearly 12.

The province has not said what the trigger number is for assessing whether to move to a more or less restrictive level, only that the seven-day average of new admissions is a key metric.

CBC News asked the Department of Health what the seven-day average of new admissions was when the province moved to the most restrictive Level 3 in mid-January and in the weeks leading up to the decision to return to Level 2 on Jan. 28.

Instead, Macfarlane seems to have provided the seven-day average of total hospitalizations, not new admissions.

"Leading into Level 3, the seven-day average for the week ending Jan. 15 was 98 hospital admissions, of which 12 individuals were in intensive care. The totals as of Jan. 30, were 145 hospitalizations, of which 12 were ICU.

"The key difference being that in the lead up to Level 3, our admissions were rapidly increasing, which was demonstrated in the days and weeks that followed, as cases and hospitalizations continued to climb," he said, indirectly pointing out the importance of the admissions data, which isn't being released.

"In contrast, and despite numbers being higher on January 30th, these numbers have since plateaued and are trending down."

CBC News also requested the peak projections for intensive care admissions and COVID-related deaths, as well as any other metrics associated with these, such as anticipated ages, vaccination status, and underlying health conditions.

No projections were provided, but Macfarlane did note that mid-February was anticipated for peak projections in hospitalizations, and corresponding ICU admissions.

"The projections take into account the provincial vaccination coverage rates, variant specific characteristics, and population demographics," he said.

"Vaccination status has always made the most significant difference in the severity of  COVID-19 infections. This is magnified for the elderly, the immunocompromised and those with comorbidities," he added.