Manitoba to stay its course on vaccination roll-out

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This article was published 29/12/2020 (2063 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Manitoba doesn’t plan to change its COVID-19 vaccine roll-out to get needles in as many arms as possible, instead sticking with the two-shot process that has so far delivered more than 2,470 doses.

Six-thousand more doses are on track to be given out, starting next week, the province says.

Dr. Jazz Atwal, acting deputy chief provincial public health officer, said Manitoba’s per capita vaccination rates are currently higher than the Canadian average.

On Tuesday, he also announced 133 new cases of the virus and five more deaths.

“I’m very comfortable with the way that we’re approaching (vaccinations),” Atwal told a news conference, adding public health wants to make sure it can keep administering doses in a safe and consistent way, keeping in mind limited supply.

“We don’t want any hiccups. So slow and steady sometimes is a little bit better than rushing to something. This is a marathon; the vaccine program is a marathon. We’re at the beginning of a marathon, so I think we all need to take that into account.”

On Monday, Ontario announced it will move to administer an initial dose of the vaccine to as many people as possible — a switch from holding back half of its supply to allow for the required two doses per person.

Atwal made clear Manitoba has no plans to follow suit.

“There’s merit, probably, to looking at providing all those doses, but there’s also some unintended consequences. The supply chain issue is real. We have a set number of doses right now,” he said.

As of Tuesday afternoon, 2,477 doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine had been administered in Manitoba.

One individual was reported to have had “an adverse event” after being vaccinated. Atwal didn’t provide details, but said the person did not have a severe allergic reaction, and it still needs to be determined whether the vaccine played any role.

Meanwhile, recent lower case counts are a positive sign, but Manitobans shouldn’t be complacent, Atwal said.

“To be quite frank, I can’t see us getting out of all of our (pandemic) restrictions in the near future.” – Dr. Jazz Atwal

“To be quite frank, I can’t see us getting out of all of our (pandemic) restrictions in the near future,” he said. “When we look at how long that takes to vaccinate the bulk of Manitobans, it’s going to be months and months — and that’s what we need to look at from an immunity perspective.”

As of Tuesday morning, there were 246 people in hospital with active COVID-19 cases, and 92 in hospital who are no longer infectious but continue to require care. There were 32 active case patients in the province’s intensive care units, and an additional four in ICU who are no longer infectious but require critical care.

Four of the deaths announced Tuesday were in the Winnipeg health region, including: a woman in her 90s connected to the outbreak at Convalescent Home; a man in his 80s connected to the outbreak at Oakview Extended Care Facility; a woman in her 80s linked to the outbreak at Holy Family Home; and a woman in her 70s.

The province also announced one woman in her 90s died in connection to the outbreak at Portage District General Hospital in Portage la Prairie.

The total number of pandemic deaths in Manitoba climbed to 659.

Tuesday’s new cases were predominantly in the Winnipeg region (97). Another 22 were identified in Southern Health, six in Interlake-Eastern, five in Prairie Mountain, and three in Northern Health.

Manitoba has now identified a total 24,385 lab-confirmed cases of COVID-19 since the onset of the pandemic. Of those, 4,424 are listed as active.

“It does not mean we can take the restrictions in place less seriously. It does not mean we can go see friends and family outside our household, or host people this Thursday to celebrate the new year,” Atwal said.

Manitoba’s five-day test positivity rate was 12.4 per cent; slightly lower in Winnipeg, at 12.1 per cent.

The province said 1,371 tests were completed Monday at its labs, bringing the total number since early February to 418,344.

Public health has declared new outbreaks in Winnipeg at the Health Sciences Centre (unit GA4) and Riverview Health Centre.

The province said an outbreak at Tuxedo Villa Extendicare in Winnipeg has been declared over.

katie.may@freepress.mb.ca

julia-simone.rutgers@freepress.mb.ca