Restrictions likely helped curb spread of COVID-19 in N.S., Dalhousie researchers find

A new report from six Dalhousie University researchers has found government restrictions that limited movement during the first two years of the pandemic likely helped curb the spread of COVID-19.

It also found infection, hospitalizations and deaths increased when restrictions eased and the highly infectious Omicron variant arrived.

In March 2022, Nova Scotia ended its COVID-19 state of emergency and no longer required people to wear masks in most public spaces. The next month, cases in the province hit an all-time high.

"The higher surge in cases and infections and hospitalizations and even deaths were partially attributed to the higher mobility that we observed between people here in Nova Scotia," said Gustavo Martinez, one of the report's authors.

Report used public information

The report used data that was available to the public.

This included data from Google's community mobility reports, the Bank of Canada Stringency Index — described at its website as the measures the strictness of policy "related to containment restrictions and public information campaigns across provinces and over time," covid19tracker.ca and government response data.

The report noted Nova Scotia's high vaccine rate. Martinez said vaccinations against COVID-19 helped prevent people from becoming very sick while not preventing illness outright.

"When we're looking at higher cases according to the vaccination numbers, in general, it does not mean that if you are vaccinated you're not going to get COVID," he said. 

"You still have chances due to the immunological action of the vaccine against the virus, but you are less likely to develop a severe illness as a result of it."

Pandemic fatigue

Martinez said it was becoming more difficult to maintain restrictions by the second year of the pandemic.

"When Omicron happened we were entering the second year of the pandemic, so at that time it was hard to maintain any medium to long-term restrictive measure because people at the same time developed a lot of what we call pandemic fatigue," he said. 

"So, it's not only that we experienced it in more cases when these measures were relaxed. I think that it was the natural course of the pandemic itself."

The report concluded Public Health should consider three factors to implement restrictive measures — the nature of the circulating strain of the virus, the level of immunity within the population and the movement dynamics of the population.

Martinez said there is also useful information the general public can take from the report, like getting vaccinated to prevent severe illness, avoiding large crowds and wearing a mask.