Fredericton — As New Brunswick continues into its third year of the COVID-19 pandemic, Public Health is changing its reporting methodology for pandemic information.
Over the past four weeks, the government reduced the COVID data updates from daily to weekly, and then reduced the amount of data being publicized.
Starting this week, the government will only publicize what the Premier’s office thinks the COVID data probably is — best guess.
Speaking exclusively to The Manatee in the parking lot of his local golf course (since the province no longer does COVID news conferences), Higgs explained that the old method of COVID data reporting is no longer effective.
“The problem with telling people so much about COVID is that they keep wanting the government to do something about it,” Higgs frowned, putting his golf clubs in his trunk. “One thing I’ve learned the hard way is if you keep telling people about problems, they expect you to solve them.
“From now on, we are only going to report how we think things are going. It’s mostly hunches and gut feelings but hey — when have we ever been wrong before about this?
“For example, how are schools doing? Great! More teachers than ever are, ah…getting time off to rest. Also, with so many students off sick, the teacher-to-student ratio has never been better! That means we don’t have to worry about social distancing because the schools are half-empty!
“Now, hospitals.. ah, what word is better than ‘great?’ Hmm…someone usually makes this stuff up for me. Ah, hospitals are…super fantastic! Do people say that? I feel like they do. Anyway, starting this week, we end counting all of the hospital COVID stuff — full stop. Frankly it’s a lot of counting, and it’s pretty depressing. Life’s too short, am I right?”
As our reporter kept trying to break in with follow-up questions, Higgs became visibly annoyed. “I gotta go…just one more thing I want you reporters to remember,” Higgs said as he walked over and sucker-slapped the mask off our reporter’s face.
“You better keep COVID’s name out of your EFFIN’ MOUTHS!”