Monday afternoon, Nova Scotia’s top doctor dropped into a mobile vaccination clinic at the Sackville Public Library to get his COVID-19 bivalent booster dose.
“I'm at the end of my 168 days after having COVID infection in late July,” said Dr. Robert Strang. “Now I’m eligible. I can get my booster dose.”
His message in the post-holiday season -- update your immunizations.
“Flu season is starting to be on decline, fortunately, but we still have COVID around and we're seeing some signs of an increase in COVID,” he added. “Which is not unexpected after all the socialization around the holidays, etcetera.”
“The new variants, even the so-called ‘Kraken,’ it is an Omicron strain,” he said. “All the evidence would say there is still good protection against severe disease.”
That message – one Nova Scotians at the clinic take seriously.
Daniel Momberquette stopped by to see if there were long lines at the clinic. Discovering little to no wait, he chose to get his COVID-19 booster and his flu shot.
“I’d rather err on the side of caution,” he said. “I think people have fallen into a false sense of security about the numbers. Unfortunately, they don’t publicize the numbers as much as they used to and I wish they would.”
“I started hearing about more people getting infections, so I decided to get it,” says Leigh Martell. “I want to be safe and I don’t want to get too sick. I have two little kids at home that I need to take care of.”
Strang says flu season is waning but COVID-19 cases are on the uptick.
Nova scotia's latest respiratory report recorded 140 new cases of Influenza A, 165 of respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), and three flu deaths between Christmas Day and New Year’s Eve.
The province’s latest COVID-19 numbers show 73 people were admitted to hospital because of the virus over the two-week period ending Jan. 3, and it added 19 more deaths to Nova Scotia’s total of 694 lives lost since the beginning of the pandemic.
The Department of Health and Wellness has also confirmed that two cases of the new Omicron sub-variant -- known as “Kraken” -- were also detected late last month.
“I think it's fair to say that this is a more infectious variant that we've seen so far,” says infectious disease expert Dr. Matthew Oughton. “But that’s just about transmissibility,” he says.
“It doesn’t speak to the severity of the cases … and very clearly after the months and months of primary doses, of boosters, as well as to a certain extent, natural infection, we have a population that is more immune now than it’s ever been.”
“That’s not to say that this will cause zero disease, but I think it’s safe to say that the current boosters available to us will still continue to be effective,” Oughton adds.
Epidemiologist Susanne Gulliver remains concerned.
“When you infect more people, there's more infections, [that] means there's a greater chance of death and Long COVID,” she says.
The St. John’s based researcher at NewLab Clinical Research would like to see more data on COVID-19 made available to the public more often.
“It would be nice if the provincial governments gave out numbers on a more frequent basis,” she says. “People aren’t masking, and unfortunately, they need to be told to mask,” she says.
“This new variant, it’s the same ‘song and dance’ as we had with Omicron,” Gulliver adds.
Before the holiday season, several Nova Scotia emergency departments (ED) were dealing with record numbers of visits and struggling to keep up.
According to the province’s online reporting, average overall visits have decreased, but many emergency departments remain at or above 100 per cent acute care capacity.
In November, the head of the IWK Children’s Hospital said Nova Scotia was seeing extremely high numbers of children sick amid a "perfect storm" of respiratory illnesses.
Monday, the interim head of the IWK ED said there has been a slight reprieve.
“Overall, our volume has definitely gone down on a day-to-day basis,” says Dr. Emma Burns.
But she says the hospital is still seeing children sick with COVID-19 and RSV.
“We’re still seeing a fair amount of acuity,” she says. “We have a winter uptick every season … the difference this year was that the peaks coincided … they came earlier than expected, and they were larger than expected.”
“Just before Christmas, things felt really dire,” she says. “I’m glad to say we’re now in more what we would expect to see at this time of year.”
When asked what the post-holiday outlook might be, Burns says it’s difficult to predict, and that means precautions remain important.
“If you're sick, and you can, please stay home. If you're sick and you can't stay home please wear a mask, wash your hands, get any vaccines that are available to you,” she says.
Back at the vaccination clinic, Strang said it’s all part of dealing with the current reality.
“This is still evolving,” he said, “still lots that we need to learn.”
