Manitoba missed lessons in colony response, says expert

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This article was published 31/08/2020 (2025 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A Saskatchewan epidemiologist believes both Hutterite colonies in Manitoba along with public health officials should have learned more lessons from what happened in his province and elsewhere to act faster to isolate within the religious communities and test everyone when COVID-19 first showed up there.

Dr. Nazeem Muhajarine, a professor of community health and epidemiology at the University of Saskatchewan, said the province and the religious communities should have acted faster to do everything they could including physically distancing all members of a colony from each other as soon as a case of COVID-19 was identified.

“I think the Hutterite community, and more generally the province, health authority, and political leaders could have watched Saskatchewan and Alberta and prepared for it coming there,” Muhajarine said on Sunday.

“(The colonies) prepare food, eat, work, and have leisure time together communally. This is a perfect set up if a virus infiltrated a community and one that could get out of hand. That seems to be happening in the Hutterite community in Manitoba now.”

Manitoba public health officials announced on Sunday that the province had found 35 more positive cases to bring the number of active cases up to 452. The province didn’t break down the numbers of how many occurred in communal living communities, in which it said last week about one-third of cases have occurred.

Previously the province has indicated communal communities include Hutterite colonies as well as the places where many Maple Leaf plant workers in Brandon live.

But Muhajarine said he doesn’t want to stigmatize the religious communities because of what is happening to them. He also says what puts the colonies most at risk can also assist them.

“We have to be careful about not painting every Hutterite colony with the same brush,” he said. “There is no moral failure to getting the virus. You just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

“And as long as the virus doesn’t infiltrate the communities that do everything together it can be protected and keep the virus out. But once you get the virus, things can get out of control. That would be the time to set aside their lifestyle you have to get ahead of the problem.

“The virus will pass if you do the right things.”

kevin.rollason@freepress.mb.ca