Experts warn of COVID complacency as variants arrive in Maritimes

First at Five: One step forward, two variants back It's been nearly a year since COVID-19 became a reality, and now new variants are threatening the new normal.

HALIFAX — There was a light at the end of the COVID-19 tunnel when vaccines arrived in the Maritimes.

However, recent arrivals of a pair of new variants of the virus are less welcome, and have experts warning that Maritimers should remain on high alert about COVID-19 exposure.

On Tuesday, New Brunswick confirmed three cases of the U.K. variant had been identified in the province.

"At our last briefing, I talked about the threat posed by new variants of the COVID-19 virus, new strains of the virus have appeared, which spread faster and more readily than the original version," Dr. Jennifer Russell said during Tuesday’s update. "The lab has confirmed that we have in Zone 2, two cases of the COVID-19 variant which is the Saint John area and one case in Zone 7, which is the Miramichi area."

On Jan. 22, Nova Scotia reported that two cases that were identified in December were confirmed to be variant strains – one from U.K. and one from South Africa. Both cases are considered recovered and were related to travel outside of Canada.

"We know that significant work is being done internationally to understand the implications of these variants and we are working closely with the lab to investigate further both of those cases," said Dr. Robert Strang, the province's chief medical officer of health on Jan. 22.

P.E.I. and Newfoundland and Labrador haven’t identified variant cases yet, but both provinces have expressed concerns that they could arrive soon.

“"I think it is too early to say we’ve turned the corner on the second wave of the pandemic," said Dr. Heather Morrison, P.E.I. Chief Health Officer during a news update on Wednesday. "I think more concerning is the variants and their unknowns."

Many Maritimers asking questions of what exactly are these new strains and how concerned should we be?

Doctors say mutations of the COVID-19 virus were anticipated, and ask that Maritimers remain vigilant.

“If you get a lot of cases over a long time you can expect it to mutate but generally it doesn’t mutate very fast in multiple places at the same time and that is what we’re seeing right now,” says Dr. Lisa Barrett, an Infectious Disease Specialist.

Barrett says so far six Canadian provinces have identified a variant strain of COVID-19.

One particular area of concern around these variants is the apparent ease of transmission.

Doctors in Ontario are closely watching patients who have caught one of the new strains.

“We discovered that some of them have actually not spent more than a minute, or two minutes, doing some essential shopping in places. It gives us the impression that this is being transmitted very fast indeed,” says Dr. Karim Kurji, York Region Chief Medical Officer of Health.

The vaccines now being used to fight COVID-19 have varying degrees of efficacy against the new strains, so the key to the battle is to limit their spread.

With only 11 active cases of COVID-19 in Nova Scotia, it might be easy to let our guards down, but with a delay in vaccinations, experts say that’s the last thing we should do.

“We want to keep the cases down and that’s how we’re going to keep the variants at bay, as well as restricting travel,” says Dr. Lisa Barrett.

Maritimers are already used to wearing masks, washing their hands, and physical distancing, so is there anything else we can do to further protect ourselves against COVID variants?

“I am very keen on people not traveling, I am very keen on people keeping distance and wearing a good mask so three layers of filter and wearing it in the right position,” says Dr. Barrett.

She also recommends Maritimers take advantage of the asymptomatic testing sites that pop-up around the region, so we can track the spread of COVID-19 and its mutations.