Mixed Messaging
Credibility
Transmission of COVID-19
"If you have been vaccinated, don't let that give you a false sense of security. People can contract COVID-19 after being vaccinated, we are getting more data every day on the transmissibility."
- Chief Medical Officer of Health, Dr. Jennifer Russell, GNB press conference April 15, 2021
"Those who are fully vaccinated can still contract the virus but their risk of severe illness, hospitalization and death is significantly lower." "So these cases in fully vaccinated New Brunswickers are much less severe but they still pose a threat to the general population. If you become infected while fully vaccinated, you may not immediately even be aware of it. Symptoms can be less noticeable but you can still pass the virus on to others. People who may be much more vulnerable to its [COVID-19] effects."
- Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr. Jennifer Russell, GNB press conference September 20, 2021
COVID-19 Vaccine Mandates
"To those of you that haven't [gotten vaccinated], we're going to find ways for you to want to be vaccinated"
- Premier Blaine Higgs, August 28, 2021
"There will be consequences. Now we have a solution. Take advantage of the solution."
- Premier Blaine Higgs speaking of mandatory COVID-19 vaccines September 15, 2021
The State of Health Care in New Brunswick
On April 12, 2021, in a grand announcement that her department would be taking over recruitment from Horizon, inferring they are incompetent, Health Minister Dorothy Shepherd pledged to find a primary care giver for each of the roughly 44,226 people registered with Patient Connect New Brunswick, within 6 months.
As of October 12, 2021, 6 months since her announcement, there were still 40,304 people registered. New Brunswick stands to lose approximately 20 doctors on November 19th.
Divisive Rhetoric
"These folks [unvaccinated] are going to get worse until they're confronted and beaten by regular people [vaccinated] who see them as the threat to our (imperfect) institutions that they are."
- Minister of Education Dominic Cardy on Twitter, August 27, 2021
"And I think that's all we can do, because at this point, at some point, we have to say that there's going to be a response by the vaccinated, by the enormous majority, who've done the right thing, and that there's going to be a decline in the tolerance for those, who for whatever reasons, endanger the lives of the people around them. That's about where I am at right now."
- Minister of Education Dominic Cardy speaking at a press conference September 13, 2021