‘We Have To Keep Pushing’: Mayor Meets With Top Doc

The mayor of Saint John says we need to dig deep for the next few weeks to get through this pandemic hurdle.

Don Darling and about two dozen others had the chance to meet with the province’s top doctor Monday evening.

The meeting came a day before the province moved the Saint John, Moncton and Fredericton health regions to the Red level.

“I know that these are very stressful times,” Darling said in a Facebook video. “The only way we get through this is if we work with each other, if we’re resilient, if we’re as patient as we can be, if we’re kind and if we’re generous.”

There has been a spike in confirmed cases of COVID-19 across much of New Brunswick in the weeks following the holiday season.

A total of 405 cases were announced between Jan. 1 and Jan. 19, accounting for 40 per cent of the total cases since the pandemic began.

“We’re in a marathon,” said Darling. “People are tired, our legs hurt, we’re exhausted from this, but we have to keep pushing. We have to stay resilient, we have to follow the directives.”

Darling said a number of themes were discussed at Monday’s meeting with Dr. Jennifer Russell and other government leaders, including vaccines and testing.

He said one of the chief medical health officer’s biggest concerns was that our testing numbers dropped off over the holidays while provinces like Nova Scotia saw their numbers remain high.

“A number of the cases that we’re experiencing right now came from individuals that did have symptoms but didn’t get tested until after they had gone around their communities and infected others,” said Darling.

“Had the individuals isolated, called 8-1-1 when they had the symptoms and followed the directives, we may have been able to not have the level of positive cases that we did.”

Also discussed at the meeting, he said, was the provincial government’s decision to keep K-12 students in the classroom during the Red phase of the pandemic.

The last-minute change announced Sunday has drawn criticism from parents and the association representing teachers across the province.

Darling said Russell felt that keeping students in school have a range of benefits, “even though there are some risks and there are some concerns” that are being managed.

“If we shut all the schools down we overwhelm the daycares, and if we overwhelm the daycares folks can’t work, and if folks can’t work folks don’t have an income,” he said.

“I’m not saying I have the perfect answers, none of us do, but it’s very complicated and there’s a lot of knock-on impacts.”

Darling said Russell and her team at Public Health are bringing a “tremendous amount of expertise, commitment and passion” to keeping New Brunswickers safe, but we as citizens need to do our part by following their directives.