ST. JOHN'S, N.L. — Newfoundland and Labrador now has a cluster of four confirmed cases of COVID-19 for which the origin has so far eluded Public Health authorities.
Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr. Janice Fitzgerald held a previously unscheduled news briefing Thursday to explain the situation.
All of the cases are in the Eastern Health region. One was announced Wednesday, and three more positive test results were reported Thursday. Fitzgerald said all are “relatively” close contacts of each other.
A fifth suspected case had yet to be confirmed through testing, but because that person is connected to a daycare centre, one of the cohorts — isolated groups — of children within that facility are now required to self-quarantine and will be tested.
Fitzgerald would not name the daycare centre, and said no further precautions are needed because the cohort system was adhered to.
Another case Thursday that was related to international travel puts the total active cases in the province at nine.
“We know this is concerning news, but we have it in our power to get it under control,” she told reporters.
She said she held the extra briefing to get ahead of any rumours that may be spreading around.
“Social media seems to beat us every time in getting things out,” she said.
“We know this is concerning news, but we have it in our power to get it under control." — Dr. Janice Ftizgerald
As well as making sure people were informed, she also wanted to emphasize that even just a cough or fever is enough to warrant getting a test.
“I’m sure the people who were involved with this cluster were very surprised to learn they had COVID,” she said.
“We’ve been saying all along that COVID can crop up anywhere.”
If there’s anything new to share, Fitzgerald said she will call another briefing Friday.
Since the provincial election call, Fitzgerald has hosted regular briefings by herself every Wednesday.
The province dealt with similar clusters last fall, when small groups of positive cases arose in Deer Lake, Grand Bank and Harbour Breton. In the latter case, it took weeks of extensive contact tracing to establish the origin.
Peter Jackson is a Local Journalism Initiative reporter covering health for The Telegram.
