Brace for the COVID-19 surge, warns N.L. health minister, as cases hit 183

As Newfoundland and Labrador recorded eight new cases of COVID-19 on Thursday, Health Minister John Haggie said the province is facing challenges in getting protective equipment for front line health-care workers.

"We are engaging provincially, nationally and at the federal and international level to try and source these materials and these pieces of equipment, which are consumable and in demand," Haggie said. 

The province is using up to six times the amount of disposable products it would in a normal flu season, he said.

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Haggie said some deliveries have been made and orders placed, but the challenge lies with receiving only parts of orders, with the rest arriving unpredictably.

Wuhan, in China's Hubei province — the epicentre of the world's outbreak — is also a principal location in the global manufacture of personal protective equipment, said Haggie, making orders difficult to fill.

Right now, health-care workers are relatively well stocked in masks, the health minister said, but finding gowns is a challenge.

"The previous week it was around gloves and on any given day the stocks of each of those may fluctuate," he said. 

"We have nine items that we regard as crucial important PPE.… Normally our system would have around 60 days of burn rate with the inventory we carry. There have been occasions when that's been down to 10 days."

Dr. Janice Fitzgerald, the province's chief medical officer of health, said Thursday during the daily COVID-19 update that the new cases are in the Eastern Health region.

As of Thursday, there are 174 cases in the Eastern Health region, three in Central Health, one in Western Health and five in Labrador-Grenfell.

Fitzgerald said 143 cases are related to Caul's Funeral Home.

• 14 cases are under 20 years old.
• 24 are between 20 and 39 years old.
• 31 are between 40 and 49 years old.
• 41 are between 50 and 59 years old.
• 38 are between 60 and 69 years old.
• 35 are 70 years old or above.

"I need everyone to understand that we are at the beginning of this epidemic in our province and now is not the time to become complacent," Fitzgerald said.

So far there have been 2,929 samples tested in the province.

Eleven people are in hospital as a result of the virus with four in intensive care.

Health Minister John Haggie reiterated the pandemic is a marathon, not a sprint.

"We are, from experience of our other jurisdictions, not yet into our likely surge period. This is likely to come over coming weeks, and we are working hard to understand when that might be."

Haggie said families should plan for virtual gatherings over Easter, and camping plans should remain on hold as Victoria Day weekend approaches at the end of May.

"Physical distancing saves lives," he said.

Haggie said the province's current restrictions have been put in place on the basis of evidence and public health advice. Creating even stricter measures might not be sustainable, he said.

"We will be as restrictive as we have to be to secure the health of the population here," said Haggie.

"We've got to live with this, potentially well into the summer. So what is manageable for two or three days will not be practical for four or five months."

The health minister also said that while the province encourages people to connect virtually, he warned people to be careful using dating applications, which he said have seen increased use during the COVID-19 pandemic.

"Let me warn you, if you use Tinder, or Grindr, and you swipe right, you might be getting more than your bargain for," he said. "So please be careful when you use these applications."

Haggie said there are four police investigations in Newfoundland and Labrador related to non-compliance of public health measures. 

Thursday also brought with it the closure of a Dominion grocery store on Stavanger Drive in St. John's after an employee recently tested positive for COVID-19. An employee at a CIBC branch on Hamlyn Road also tested positive for the virus. A bank spokesperson is cautioning clients who visited the branch between March 20-24 to self-monitor.

Canada Post told CBC News on Thursday it reopened its Kenmount Road mail sorting facility on Monday after contact tracing was completed by health officials and the building was cleaned and sanitizatized. Since its initial closure on March 23, no employees who tested positive for COVID-19 have worked at the facility, the company said.

However, more that just one employee has been found to be positive with the virus, bringing the total number to seven, the company confirmed. 

"As per their process, public health [officials] conducted contact tracing on all cases. As well, none of the positive employees have been in the facility since it was closed. Anyone who was told to self-isolate by public health authorities is currently doing so. We have kept employees and unions informed and continue our focus on safety. "

COVID-19 models

Premier Dwight Ball said there will be discussions with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Thursday evening about the release of national models for COVID-19.

Haggie said a good model will give a "fuzzy guess" into the future spread of the virus, maybe seven or eight days.

British Columbia has released its COVID-19 models, but Haggie said that province is anywhere from two to four weeks ahead of Newfoundland and Labrador in the evolution of the pandemic.

"Our challenge is really around the data and the magnitude of the data, the numbers that we have. We've had one, as it were, outbreak. One cluster. And that very much skews data and we've seen that elsewhere," said Haggie.

"If you take that data out, then our numbers at the moment do not lend themselves to modelling."

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