The Chief Public Health Office has announced that the province’s legal order requiring isolation of positive cases of COVID-19 and masks in high risk settings, will remain in place. Those high risk settings include hospitals, long-term care and community care homes. Officials say that keeping those measures in place will help to curb the transmission of COVID-19 while we are seeing a surge in cases on PEI. Individuals who test positive for COVID-19 are legally required to isolate for 7 days (after onset of symptoms or positive test) regardless of vaccination status. Individuals who are immunocompromised must isolate for 10 days.
Island health officials say that the recent results from genetic sequencing received from the National Microbiology Lab were all identified as BA.4 and BA.5 subvariants. As a result, individuals who have previously tested positive with other subvariants of Omicron are at greater risk of being re-infected. These variants are more transmissible and can escape the immune system, meaning that prior vaccination and/or infection are not as protective against becoming infected with BA.4 or BA.5, compared to earlier variants. Individuals who previously tested positive and have symptoms of COVID-19 will be considered as re-infected if they have a positive test result as early as 60 days after their previous positive test.
