About 1 in 11 New Brunswickers infected with COVID-19, says researcher

About one in 11 New Brunswickers are infected with COVID-19, according to an infectious diseases researcher and co-founder of COVID-19 Resources Canada.

Infections are roughly 31 times higher now than compared to the lowest point of the pandemic in Canada, based on wastewater data, Tara Moriarty posted on social media Sunday.

Hospitalizations are nearly 15 times higher, deaths almost 17 times higher, and long COVID cases more than 33 times higher, according to Moriarty, an associate professor at the University of Toronto.

New Brunswick's COVID-19 hazard index for Jan. 20 through Feb. 2 is "severe" and third highest in the country at 22.3, she said. Only Quebec and Newfoundland are higher at 24.9 and 24, respectively.

The national average is 21.2.

The six-level hazard index is calculated based on several variables, such as COVID-19 wastewater data, test positivity rates, hospitalizations, intensive care unit admissions and deaths.

New Brunswick's Department of Health is scheduled to release the latest Respiratory Watch report this afternoon, with updated COVID-19 and flu data.

'Still a global health threat'

COVID-19 is "still a global health threat," according to the World Health Organization's director of epidemic and pandemic preparedness and prevention.

"The numbers of deaths have reduced drastically since its peak a couple of years ago, but we still have around 10,000 deaths per month," said Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove, noting that's data from only 50 countries.

Maria Van Kerkhove, WHO's director of epidemic and pandemic preparedness and prevention, said COVID-19 is 'causing far too much burden when we can prevent it.' (Reuters)

"What's difficult right now is that the virus continues to evolve," she said in a recent video post on social media. "We are two years into Omicron, we have a virus that will continue to change as we let it circulate rampantly."

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In addition, "we don't necessarily know how often we're getting infected," said Van Kerkhove, an infectious disease epidemiologist.

"And our concern is in five years from now, 10 years from now, 20 years from now — what are we going to see in terms of cardiac impairment, of pulmonary impairment, of neurologic impairment? We don't know.

"We don't know everything about this virus. It's year five of the pandemic. And I know it feels a lot longer, but there's still a lot that we don't know about it."