New Brunswick outbreak: How a smalltown doctor became a Covid pariah

After being labelled the "patient zero" of an outbreak of Covid, a Congolese-Canadian physician says he became a target for racist threats, a pariah in his community, and a "scapegoat" for local officials.

When Dr Jean-Robert Ngola heard that he had to pick up his daughter last May, he quickly did the maths.

His daughter lived in Montreal with her mother, about seven hours away from his home in Campbellton, New Brunswick.

As a family physician, he knew that he needed to be as safe as possible to limit the spread of Covid to others. But as a parent, he had to come get his child so that her mother could attend a family funeral in Africa.

In order to get her and have contact with has few people as possible, he hopped in his car and drove all day, spending the night at his brother's before driving her back.

Before leaving, Dr Ngola called the local police, asking for clarity around the laws about self-isolation.

New Brunswick has one of the strictest quarantine policies in Canada. Along with several other eastern provinces, it has formed an "Atlantic bubble" - in the early months of the pandemic, most forms of travel into the bubble were restricted, and anyone entering had to quarantine for 14 days.