This morning during his interview on Information Morning Fredericton, Premiere Blaine Higgs doubled down on his narrative for accepting inaction as a valid direction forward. In his desperation to assure us that Covid is innocuous he made misleading and demonstrably false statements.
He lied.
Higgs' description of NB's current Covid status revolved around two principles:
numbers are trending down, and
sick people aren't sick.
The real world has plenty to say about these claims.
NUMBERS ARE TRENDING DOWN?
During his answer to the very first question in the interview, Higgs stated "the hospitalizations actually are down."
This is something easily verifiable.
GNB began releasing statistics of hospitalizations "for" Covid and "with" Covid on January 21. As of the most recent update, they are only reporting "for" Covid hospitalizations.
We are currently at the highest "for" Covid hospitalizations of the entire pandemic.
The only way one could misconstrue hospitalizations as being "down" would be to compare this week's "for" Covid with last weeks total of "for" Covid plus "with" Covid.
This leaves one wondering whether the move to "for" Covid only reporting was intended to fool the casual viewer.
This is not the first time Higgs has blatantly lied about hospitalization trends. During the last press conference (six weeks ago) while announcing the lifting of protections, Higgs stated the same lie to justify the move.
It is classically propagandist to repeat lies until they are accepted as truths. Higgs' words are broadcast at face value without corroboration or verification. Many people, with no perceived reason to doubt him, will take his statements as fact and suffer for it.
When pressed on what we are all hearing about the actual state of hospitals in NB, Higgs admits that hospitals are experiencing critical staff shortages, but assures us it's the protections causing the problems, not Covid.
Higgs says "the idea is that if they're contacted, if they think they've experienced Covid, they go off for five days, and then if they don't get it, they test, they’re back" Implying that an overabundance of caution is causing healthy Hospital staff to stay home.
He goes on to say "it's not a matter of many being sick. It's just a matter of where we think we had exposure... we're seeing repeated cases of that, where people found “oh I think I was exposed and I’m out for five days”" Implying people are mostly isolating due to "exposure."
The fact is the vast majority of isolating staff are Covid positive, not Covid "contacted". We see this in the most recent releases from the RHAs:
In Vitalité there are 340 Covid positive staff (Apr 1).
In Horizon there are 263 Covid positive staff (Apr 5).
SICK PEOPLE AREN'T SICK?
In addition to and along the same lines as the claims that Hospital staff are burdened by bureaucracy rather than illness, Higgs repeats his now famous "Covid is like a cold" claims, asking "how would we treat it if you were absent for a cold or a flu?"
In the midst of a baffling word salad Higgs explains "it's a process ... where we transition from: Is it Covid? Is it cold? Is it something I just don't feel good? Do I need five days or can I get back to work?" He's doing his damnedest to equate Covid with the common cold.
When pressed about how numbers of Covid hospitalizations and deaths are far higher than those for colds, Higgs claims ignorance. "We never tracked that before, so we don't know." There is a reason that common cold fatalities aren't tracked. They're comparatively non-existent.
Neither rhinovirus or the common cold appear on NB's list of tracked communicable diseases. Higgs would be better served by comparing Covid to a flu. But even then any claims of similarity would fall flat.
Higgs brings the Covid minimizing to new depraved depths by claiming 70% of NB Covid deaths were due to DNR orders, if they even died of Covid at all.
"That reality that we're facing with what could be COVID, could be another virus, a cold or anything."
Higgs is attempting to convince the province to not believe their own experiences. Maybe Covid is just a cold.
Maybe the hospital staff are home because of unneeded isolation rules.
Maybe people died for some other reason.
The enormity of this gaslighting is sickening.
Covid is not a cold.
Higgs wants this to be normal.
Our hospitals are critically stressed, with emergency rooms closing, surgeries perpetually delayed, and diseases going undiagnosed.
Higgs wants this to be normal.
Finally... 358 Covid afflicted New Brunswickers have died.
Higgs wants this to be normal.
This will never be normal.