In the fourth week of the COVID-19 pandemic, Nova Scotia is beginning to see “community spread” with cases not connected to previous cases or travel.
Dr. Robert Strang, Nova Scotia’s chief medical officer of health, does not believe it’s widespread but he says we have to do everything we can to keep it from spreading.
“How big the wave is, as we move into the end of April on our healthcare system, quite frankly depends on how we all work together to do the things we need to do to prevent the spread so that is…staying apart, staying home as much as possible.”
There has been a lot of debate over whether masks should be worn during the pandemic.
Dr. Strang says the Public Health Agency of Canada is looking into the effectiveness for the public.
“It’s very important that surgical grade masks are preserved and used for healthcare workers and other essential workers, so even now, if the public are choosing to masks, it’s really important that they do NOT use surgical grade masks. Those need to be preserved for those who truly need them.”
He says there are national guidelines for what type of masks healthcare workers need and all personal protective equipment needs to appropriate for the setting.
As the COVID-19 pandemic continues, testing in Nova Scotia has greatly increased.
Dr. Strang says two weeks ago the province could test a maximum of two hundred a day.
“We’re now up to a thousand and can go beyond that. We’ve expanded our testing in a number of ways and we’re looking at ways to continue to expand that and we are going to get more cases and we are going to get some level of a spike. It really is all of us working together will determine how big or small that spike is.”
Fourteen new cases of COVID-19 were identified Thursday in Nova Scotia, giving us 207 confirmed cases, while 8,234 test results have been negative, which have been identified in all parts of the province.
