Today in the #AtlanticBubble

The second wave is here.

There were 11 new cases in the Bubble today: 5 in Nova Scotia, 4 in New Brunswick and 2 in Newfoundland and Labrador.

In NFLD, one of the new cases is travel-related and the other is still under investigation (in the Easter Zone, which encompasses St. John's.

In NB, 3 of the new cases are in the Moncton area and 1 is in the Fredericton area. All are still under investigation.

The NB government has put out an exposure notification for the Main Street Moncton Fit4Less: https://www2.gnb.ca/content/gnb/en/corporate/promo/covid-19/potential_public_exposure.html spanning 06NOV2020 to 12NOV2020.

In NS, all 4 new cases are in the Halifax area: two seem to be school aged children and all are linked to existing cases (if I read the releases right).

NS Public Health has released an exposure notification for GCR Tires in Dartmouth for 13NOV2020: http://www.nshealth.ca/news/potential-exposure-covid-19-dartmouth-business

In today's press conference, the NS premier and chief medical officer of health both seemed to acknowledge that community spread had returned to the province, as cases not related to travel have been cropping up for a couple of weeks, particularly in Halifax.

A similar pattern seems to be showing up in parts of NB recently (Moncton and Fredericton mainly).

We're starting off, seemingly at a very low base rate of cases compared to the rest of the country. If you ever see my all-provinces graph, the Bubble is basically bottomed-out.

But this isn't because we're special or in any way immune from the pandemic. It's because we've had travel restrictions (the Bubble) and really good compliance with masks and distancing, and great contact tracing that we've staved off outbreaks for so long.

But with there being so many cases in the rest of the country, there was always a decent chance that new cases would land and take hold eventually.

So, what does that look like going forward?

Currently, none of the provincial governments have increased restrictions or changed their alert levels.

PEI has recently mandated masks, but I don't know if that was related to anything in particular.

The attached chart is not a forecast (it does not predict what *will* happen), but it does map out a series of scenarios for the next six weeks.

The scenarios are plausible: the lines past today are just the other provinces' recent growth rates applied to us starting today.

I think if we all do our part, we can beat those scenarios, just like we crushed the first wave and suppressed the outbreaks in Campbellton and Moncton last month.

What we do?

We all know to wear our masks, keep our distancing and avoid crowds. Download the ALERT app if you haven't already.

Here's the big one. Those [indoor, unmasked social gatherings] you like? Start to prioritize them. Which ones are needs and which are wants? Can you cut one this week?

We're not back in March/April, but we are back in May/June and going in the wrong direction.

Small sacrifices now can forestall bigger ones later.

We've beat this before and we'll do it again.

Have a great rest of the week. Look after each other!

Oh, and I forgot. This leaves us with 68 known, active cases inside the Bubble by my count: 32 in NB, 24 in NS, 9 in NFLD, and 3 in PEI.