'This feels like I’m living in a nightmare’: N.B. man urges vaccinations after two relatives hospitalized
A New Brunswick man is speaking out about the importance of vaccines after several of his unvaccinated family members contracted COVID-19, with two of them requiring hospitalization for severe symptoms.
Joe Gee lives in Carlingford, N.B., near Perth-Andover. He says the virus is ‘spreading rampantly’ in his community, leaving himself and his fiancée, who have both been vaccinated, to care for loved ones who have become sick.
"This feels like I'm living in a nightmare and sometimes I like to pretend that it isn’t real, but it's real,” says Gee.
“I have to keep going. I have to do what I need to do to ensure that this spread doesn’t continue and that people start listening.”
On Tuesday morning, Gee’s uncle was rushed to the Upper River Valley Hospital in Waterville, N.B. by ambulance – it’s the second relative of his to recently be admitted to that facility with COVID-19.
"I'm just glad that I got vaccinated and my fiancé is vaccinated and we're both alive and healthy to be able to care for everybody that's sick," says Gee.
"The contact tracing all goes back to the church, and that's where this all started."
Carlingford is in the Fredericton region, also known as Zone 3, which as of Tuesday had more than 200 confirmed cases. As of that date, 79.5 per cent of eligible New Brunswickers were fully vaccinated, with 88.4 per cent having received their first dose.
“A lot of people think I'm angry, but really I'm scared more than anything else, this is terrifying,” says Gee.
“If you’re able to get vaccinated, and your doctor says get vaccinated, then you should do what’s best for yourself and your community, go get vaccinated.”
The province recorded 68 new cases of COVID-19 on that Tuesday, bringing the total number of active cases in the province to 632.
There were also two deaths reported, both people in their 80s, one in the Fredericton region and one in the Edmundston region.
With 40 hospitalizations, and 16 in the intensive care unit, emergency room doctor Serge Melanson, who works at the Moncton Hospital, says the situation is ‘grave.’
“When the capacity of what the hospital can take in starts increasing even further, then they have to start looking at tougher decisions around cutting back on planned or elective surgeries as an example, or procedures,” says Dr. Melanson.
“This is not only something impacting the ER where I work, but every aspect of the hospital and all the services they offer that are impacted one way of another.”
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
BREAKING Federal employees will be required to spend 3 days a week in the office
Starting in September, public servants in the core public administration will be required to work in the office a minimum of three days a week. The Treasury Board Secretariat says executives will need to be in the office four days per week.
Concerns about plexiglass prompt inspections at some Loblaws locations in Ottawa
Inspections are underway at more than one Loblaws location in Ottawa after complaints were filed about tall plexiglass barriers.
Canada's most wanted fugitive arrested in P.E.I. in connection with Toronto homicide
A suspect in a fatal shooting in Toronto’s east end last summer has been arrested in Charlottetown, just one week after he topped a list of Canada’s most wanted fugitives.
OPP officer said 'someone's going to get hurt' before wrong-way Hwy. 401 crash
As multiple Durham police cruisers were chasing a robbery suspect on the wrong side of Highway 401 Monday night, an Ontario Provincial Police officer shared his concerns, telling a dispatcher, "Someone's going to get hurt."
Poilievre returns to House unrepentant for calling Trudeau 'wacko,' Speaker not resigning
An unrepentant Pierre Poilievre returned to the House of Commons on Wednesday to pepper the prime minister about his drug decriminalization policies after being booted the day prior for refusing to take back calling Justin Trudeau 'wacko' over his approach to the issue.
Five human skeletons, missing hands and feet, found outside house of Nazi leader Hermann Göring
Archeologists have unearthed the skeletons of five people, missing their hands and feet, at a former Nazi military base in Poland.
Toddler of Phoenix first responder dies after bounce house goes airborne
A two-year-old child died after a strong gust of wind sent the bounce house he was in airborne and into a neighbouring lot in central Arizona, the Pinal County Sheriff's Office said.
Plane overshoots runway at airport in St. John's, N.L., no injuries reported
Investigators from the Transportation Safety Board of Canada are headed to St. John's, N.L., after a plane overshot a runway at the city's airport this afternoon.
A teen was found buried in a basement in New York. An engraved ring helped police learn her identity two decades later
For more than two decades, the unknown victim was nicknamed "Midtown Jane Doe" because she was found in the Hell's Kitchen neighbourhood of New York City. But this week, investigators finally revealed her identity.