Infectious disease expert says N.S. in midst of seventh COVID-19 wave

An infectious disease expert says Nova Scotia is now in the midst of its seventh wave of COVID-19.

Tara Moriarty, an infectious diseases researcher at the University of Toronto, says eased restrictions and Omicron's increased spread has caused an increase in hospitalizations.

The province's current situation marks a turnaround from the beginning of the pandemic when Nova Scotia, as a part of the Atlantic Bubble, was considered an example of how to best deal with the public health crisis.

Moriarty talked to reporter Danielle Edwards about how events are changing in the province during this emerging wave of the disease.

This conversation has been edited for clarity and length.

The big question I have for Atlantic Canada, and very specifically for Nova Scotia, is where do you think things went wrong?

Omicron and all the Omicron variants are much more infectious than the COVID variants we had before December of 2021.

After people were vaccinated, I think that there probably was some relaxation. But then during the Omicron period ... most Atlantic provinces started doing away with really crucial protections like masking, mandatory masking indoors, mandatory isolation more recently.

Nova Scotia worked pretty valiantly to try to keep Omicron under control. That first really big Omicron wave was nowhere near as big in Atlantic Canada as it was in the rest of the country. And then around mid-February … things started to take off, and I really do think that is associated with removal of masking requirements and people's understanding that things weren't too serious perhaps, and that they didn't need to use these protections.

Is it accurate to say that the mortality rate in Nova Scotia is particularly high when compared to other provinces? 

Yes, it is. This is true throughout Atlantic Canada. Because there had been so little COVID before Omicron, there were a lot more people left to die who were still susceptible to COVID but hadn't caught it. In other provinces, there had been quite a few more deaths. In Atlantic Canada, the expected mortality rates at a population level were much higher because, and this is a very bold way of saying it, the population of susceptible people had not been depleted yet.

From a demographic point of view, the risk was far greater in Atlantic Canada, and that's actually been true in Canada in general for Omicron. We've been at greater risk related to mortality and everything else than many other countries like the U.S. and the U.K., where there [were] a lot of deaths before Omicron.

So when hit with something really devastating like Omicron, the percentage of people that were particularly susceptible was big enough that we're seeing a crash?
 
Exactly. In Atlantic Canada, maybe a couple of per cent of the population had been infected before Omicron, maybe five [per cent], pretty low.

And then we ramp up. Right now in Nova Scotia, it's probably about 50 per cent of the population that's been infected. So even though Omicron is milder, the vaccines don't protect us much against Omicron because it's immune evasive, previous infections don't protect as much against Omicron.

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I've seen a graphic that shows the infection risk in different provinces. New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Nova Scotia are by far the highest. 

Yeah, exactly. This is anecdotal, but something I've been noticing with Omicron is that … the provinces that have had the lowest percentage of the population infected so far have been Quebec, B.C. and Ontario.

I've been watching it and it's striking. I do wonder if people who live in cities who have had more experience with what can happen in COVID may be more aware of the seriousness. I don't know, but we're definitely seeing [in] the most populous provinces with the highest population densities, a smaller percentage of the population being infected.

I also want to ask a little bit more about the waves, especially since Nova Scotia was doing so well.

I know. It's absolutely heartbreaking, right? I think that Nova Scotia has done incredibly well because people living in Nova Scotia have the collective action of everyone doing those things right that ensures that the province does well. But people can't do those things if they don't really know what's happening. Some people won't go back, some people  won't want to mask and other stuff again. But I think that the majority of people, I think the majority of people across Canada in general, are still responsive to public health recommendations.