By Stephen Pate – A startling Google survey on April 2, 2020, shows that up to 67% of Maritimers are ignoring the Provincial Government pleas to stay at home. On average only 41% of Canadians are taking the same carefree approach to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The data was gathered by Google from their phone users on April 2, 2020, revealed on April 5th and published in a Maclean’s article What Google data says about Canadian vs. U.S. social distancing efforts.
Only 67% of Nova Scotians have not reduced their travel outside the home for shopping and recreation. New Brunswickers and Islanders are only slightly better with 58% and 57% respectively travelling freely during the early spread of COVID-19 in the region.
All of the studies of how COVID-19 spreads in a geographic population suggests that community transmission builds silently in a community until it reaches a breakout concentration that is measured by hospital admissions and soon thereafter deaths.
Nova Scotia has 310 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and it’s the first death. New Brunswick 105 and PEI 22.
Stay The Blazes Home Tweet captures NS Stephen McNeil’s plea.
Despite the risks and dire numbers from across the rest of Canada and the world, Maritimers seem to be blithely ignoring the requests to self-isolate at home, except if they have travelled in the last 14 days.
The three Maritime premiers have enforced stay-at-home laws for people who travelled in the past 14 days but avoided forcing everyone to follow those rules.
Maritimers will probably live to regret their lack of courage in protecting their citizens. By the time it’s obvious to act, it will be too late. The virus will already have gained widespread infections in the population.
Since the Provinces and the Federal Government are paying a large part of the population to stay at home, why are they not willing to enforce social isolation?
How can you tell if you have COVID-19?
COVID-19 can strike any person, at any age, in any community of our province,” Dr. Jennifer Russell, the province’s chief medical officer of health said Tuesday at a news conference in Fredericton.
“That is why it remains vital that every New Brunswicker stay at home as much as possible. When people go out, they should keep their interactions brief and maintain six feet of physical distance between themselves and others.” Two new cases in N.B. show how ‘COVID-19 can strike any person, at any age’ CTV News
No one knows who is carrying and transmitting the COVID-19 virus since symptoms take days to show.
The number of reported cases in all 3 provinces is low since only people who have symptoms are being tested. You can have COVID-19 for between 2-14 days before showing symptoms of fever, coughing, fever and headaches. I’ve been diagnosed with the new coronavirus disease, COVID-19. What should I expect? John Hopkins University
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