Restrictions likely helped curb spread of COVID-19 in N.S., Dalhousie researchers find

A new reportfrom six Dalhousie University researchers has found government restrictions that limited movementduring the first two years of the pandemic likelyhelped curb the spread of COVID-19.

It also found infection, hospitalizations and deaths increased when restrictions eased and the highly infectious Omicron variant arrived.

In March 2022, Nova Scotia ended its COVID-19 state of emergencyand no longer required people to wear masks in most public spaces. The next month, cases in the province hit an all-time high.

"The higher surge in cases and infections and hospitalizations and even deaths were partially attributed tothe higher mobility that we observed between people here in Nova Scotia," said Gustavo Martinez, one of the report's authors.

Report used public information

The report useddata that was available to the public.

This included data from Google's community mobility reports, the Bank of Canada Stringency Indexdescribed at its website as themeasures the strictness of policy "related to containment restrictions and public information campaigns across provinces and over time," covid19tracker.caand governmentresponse data.

The report noted Nova Scotia's high vaccine rate. Martinez said vaccinations against COVID-19 helped prevent people from becoming very sickwhile not preventing illness outright.

"When we're looking at higher cases according to the vaccination numbers, in general, it does not mean that if you are vaccinatedyou're not going to get COVID," he said.

"You still have chances due to the immunological action ofthe vaccine against the virus, but you are less likely todevelop a severe illness asa result of it."

Pandemic fatigue

Martinez said it was becoming more difficult to maintain restrictions by the second year of the pandemic.

"When Omicron happened we were entering the second year of the pandemic, soat that time it was hard to maintain any medium tolong-term restrictive measure because people at the same time developed a lot of what we call pandemic fatigue,"he said.

"So, it's not only thatwe experienced it in more cases when these measures were relaxed. I think that it was the natural course of the pandemic itself."

The report concluded Public Health should consider three factors to implement restrictive measures the nature of the circulating strain of the virus, the level of immunity within the populationand the movement dynamics of the population.

Martinez said there is also useful information the general public can take from the report, like getting vaccinated to prevent severe illness, avoiding large crowds and wearing a mask.