What to watch for this week on moving out of Level 3

Level 3 will be over in a week. Unless it's not.

Premier Blaine Higgs has been adamant that the province's strictest level of restrictions in the fight against the Omicron variant will end next Sunday at midnight.

He has called the near-lockdown a "last chance" to slow the spread and vowed it would last 16 days.

But there have been shifts and ambiguities in the rhetoric and the criteria surrounding that target.

Last week Higgs said in a statement that Level 3 would end "no later" than midnight on Jan. 30, a sudden new formulation that implied exiting restrictions even earlier was a possibility.

Then at a briefing Friday he was back to definitive: "We have nine days left," he declared twice.

A few minutes later, he hedged. "Yes, the thing could go off the rails." But, he added, "it is not looking like that at this stage."

According to Higgs, while hospitalizations haven't peaked, "our ability to manage the situation is improving" now that many hospital workers who contracted COVID are finished their isolation periods and returning to work.

So many New Brunswickers will be watching closely this week to see if the province can get to Level 2. Here's what to look for:

The words they use

Higgs's comments have swung from insistence on that Jan. 30 date to acknowledging that "of course" it might have to change.

One thing is clear: the premier was very reluctant to go to Level 3 in the first place.

He insisted right up until the Jan. 13 announcement that stricter rules weren't worth the trouble because many people wouldn't follow them.

"I'm very concerned that people will decide, 'I've had enough,' and I mean, I've had enough and I could have taken that position as well," he said during a Jan. 14 interview on CBC's Information Morning Fredericton.

Higgs said Friday that, in fact, most people "are indeed doing their part to meet the criteria, with a few minor exceptions."

Contacts were down 30 per cent, he was told by Public Health officials earlier that morning.

"I was told we are currently on target to go back to Level 2 as anticipated," the premier said. "Now that could change. But right now, I'm just happy and excited to report that we are on track."

The spectre of last summer's early opening

Higgs has been criticized for lifting all restrictions last July, ahead of his target date and before vaccination rates had reached the criteria he himself had set out.

A spike in cases in the fall led to the premier's approval ratings dropping and his lead over the Liberals in voting intentions vanishing.

That's why his statement last week that Level 3 would end "no later than" Jan. 30 raised eyebrows.

It suggested the premier might be prepared to risk another early lifting of restrictions.

Friday he reiterated several times that Jan. 30 was definitely still the target, adding for good measure that Public Health supported it.

"It's not a new date," he said. "It's not something that was invented on the fly."

The stance of health officials

Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr. Jennifer Russell said on Friday that her office agreed there are hopeful signs that hospitalizations will become easier to manage.

But Russell also acknowledged in an interview with Radio-Canada's La Matinale last week that she did not have the last word on restrictions.

Asked whether the forced closure of hair salons could change, Russell responded: "I'm not the one who makes all the decisions."

It will also be important to watch for comments by the CEOs of the two regional health authorities, Dr. John Dornan at Horizon and Dr. France Desrosiers at Vitalite.

They attended the announcement of Level 3 and Higgs cited their pleas for restrictions as the deciding factor for him.

"To do anything less would just wouldn't recognize the situation we're in," the premier said Jan. 14. "You couldn't miss this plea for help. We could not in all conscience put our medical professionals in that position."

A move back to Level 2 without similar vocal endorsements from the two CEOs would raise questions.

Ultimately, the numbers

In the end, it's the hospitalization numbers that will determine if Level 3 ends, but on that point, Russell was ambiguous last Friday.

"We seem to be on track at the moment with where we want to be," she said.

The province's COVID-19 "winter plan" says an assessment of returning to Level 2 would be triggered by a decline in the seven-day average of hospitalizations.

That number crept up again Sunday. On Friday Higgs said the average was "still climbing or staying relatively flat."

But there are two ways to measure COVID hospitalizations and Russell said it's not been decided which one to use.

"We're having discussions about dissecting that type of qualification," she said.

The province's daily press releases note the number of people in hospital with COVID-19, but point out that more than half of them each day were not admitted for COVID-19.

That means they either caught the virus while in hospital for other reasons, or they had it but didn't know it when they were admitted for other treatment and screened as positive.

Russell said that distinction doesn't matter much in terms of stress on the health care system. All patients withCOVIDwill have to be isolated and medical staff have to change into new personal protective equipment with each contact.

"It's a much higher burden with respect to human resources," she said.

"When you're treating a COVID patient, it's the equivalent of treating probably two or three regular non-COVID patients."

So will the total number of patients in hospital with COVID be the trigger for Level 2?

"I'm not sure how that's going to play out but for the time being, we are having those discussions," Russell said.