New Brunswick reached a sobering new milestone on Monday, January 11, 2021. There have now been 800 confirmed cases in New Brunswick since the pandemic began--a number which includes 204 active cases of COVID-19 after a spike in cases post-holiday season. This is the highest number of active cases that the province has seen since the pandemic began in March of 2020.

“When you follow Public Health guidance you are protecting yourselves and your families against this very serious disease,” said Dr. Jennifer Russell, chief medical officer of health, at a press conference in Fredericton. “You are also protecting our ability to move forward with our vaccination campaign. The campaign may take up to nine months, helping us bring this pandemic to an end.”

Vaccinations with the Pfizer vaccine began in December 2020. Recipients of the first round of the first dose of the Pfizer received their second dose this past weekend. 20 long-term care homes around the province received the first dose of the two-dose Moderna vaccine last week and will receive the final dose 28 days after the first dose. To highlight the vaccination effort, updates will be posted once a week on the COVID-19 dashboard available at gnb.ca/coronavirus. Weekly updates will include the number of doses of vaccine received, the number of doses administered, the number of doses held to serve as the second dose and the number of people fully vaccinated. Vaccination clinics for priority groups are planned to take place in Campbellton, Edmundston, Fredericton and Saint John this week.

Minister of Education Dominic Cardy was also at the COVID-19 press conference on Monday to report that Townsview School and Woodstock High School in Woodstock, as well as Académie Notre-Dame and École Aux-Quatre-Vents in Dalhousie, all an operational response day today after positive cases were reported in all four schools. Students stayed home while school staff prepared for remote learning.

“We have always said that we will not hesitate to move to home learning if and when the need is identified, but these decisions cannot be made lightly,” said Minister Cardy. “The department’s primary mandate is to ensure that students are able to have access to high-quality education. Students need healthy and safe schools to be successful, that is why we have put plans in place to ensure our schools are able to stay open, even with a small number of cases.”