Manitoba’s top doctor to field questions as respiratory virus numbers climb
Advertisement
Read this article for free:
or
Already have an account? Log in here »
To continue reading, please subscribe:
Monthly Digital Subscription
$1 per week for 24 weeks*
- Enjoy unlimited reading on winnipegfreepress.com
- Read the E-Edition, our digital replica newspaper
- Access News Break, our award-winning app
- Play interactive puzzles
*Billed as $4.00 plus GST every four weeks. After 24 weeks, price increases to the regular rate of $19.00 plus GST every four weeks. Offer available to new and qualified returning subscribers only. Cancel any time.
Monthly Digital Subscription
$4.75/week*
- Enjoy unlimited reading on winnipegfreepress.com
- Read the E-Edition, our digital replica newspaper
- Access News Break, our award-winning app
- Play interactive puzzles
*Billed as $19 plus GST every four weeks. Cancel any time.
To continue reading, please subscribe:
Add Free Press access to your Brandon Sun subscription for only an additional
$1 for the first 4 weeks*
*Your next subscription payment will increase by $1.00 and you will be charged $16.99 plus GST for four weeks. After four weeks, your payment will increase to $23.99 plus GST every four weeks.
Read unlimited articles for free today:
or
Already have an account? Log in here »
Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 21/11/2022 (1060 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
WINNIPEG – Manitoba’s chief public health officer is scheduled to take part in a telephone town hall Tuesday night as the number of children with respiratory viruses climbs.
With hospital resources being strained and school absences rising, Dr. Brent Roussin said he hopes to answer parents’ questions and deliver a plea to take preventive measures.
“We normally see these viruses throughout the respiratory virus season, but we sort of got hit with them all at once,” Roussin said Monday.
The province is dealing with COVID-19, the seasonal flu and respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV. The latter two occur every year, but have hit hard, early and simultaneously this autumn.
Doctors Manitoba, which represents some 4,000 physicians and medical students, has warned that hospitals are at risk of being overwhelmed in the near future.
The problem is especially noticeable among children. The children’s hospital in Winnipeg is already struggling to keep up with a surge in demand.
The Louis Riel School Division, one of several in the city, has seen total student absences, which include any reason for missing school, roughly triple since the start of the school year. Almost one in five students was absent Monday.
Roussin will be joined in the town hall by Dr. Elisabete Doyle, medical director and section head of pediatric emergency medicine at the children’s hospital.
They will tell parents about where kids can be taken if they fall ill, Roussin said, including medical clinics, emergency departments and urgent care centres — an option for any incident that is not life-threatening.
The town hall will also deal with preventive measures such as handwashing, getting flu and COVID-19 vaccines, and wearing a mask in indoor places, especially those that are crowded or poorly ventilated.
Roussin said there are no current plans to make mask use mandatory in indoor public places, as was done earlier in the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We don’t have any limits on, say, private gatherings so masks in public could only have so much effect when we’re not going to be able to mandate it in private settings and all the interaction that goes on,” Roussin said.
“We’re just not wanting to mandate it at this point. We don’t think that that’s going to be a necessary approach.”
Parents who want to take part in the town hall are being asked to provide their contact information on the government’s public engagement website (https://engagemb.ca/caregiver-town-hall/survey_tools/registration )
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 21, 2022.