New Brunswick has ended all COVID-19 restrictions, including masking, social distancing, capacity limits and isolation requirements. Chief Medical Officer Dr. Jennifer Russell insists the province is ready to transition into "living with COVID-19" and that the peak of the Omicron-driven fifth wave of the pandemic has passed.

"Throughout the pandemic, we've really tried to always balance the public health measures in terms of protecting the population and our hospital system with negative impacts," said Dr. Russell. At this time, our modeling shows that, for those 19 and younger, we've passed the omicron peak. We have 66 per cent of our population that is vaccinated and boosted. For our hospitalizations, the modeling for that has shown that we were going to be in the range of 100 hospitalizations, which we always expect cases to go up and some hospitalizations to go up after measures are lifted. We're expecting it, and then we're expecting it to go down after. We are confident in our recommendation to lift the measures."

While protective measures are no longer mandatory, Dr. Russell encourages New Brunswickers to continue using what they’ve learned over the past two years of the pandemic when they are in vulnerable settings or in the company of compromised people. Dr. Russell said her daughter goes to university with an immuno-compromised person, and that the entire class has decided to continue wearing their masks to keep this student safe.

Public health will continue to monitor for new variants of concern, and there's always the possibility of that restrictions could return.  "Never say never," said Dr. Russell.