Holidays ‘make or break’ for COVID in Manitoba, health official warns

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This article was published 23/12/2020 (1986 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

As Manitoba reported 15 more deaths and 201 new cases of COVID-19 on Wednesday, the province’s acting deputy chief public health officer made no apologies for repeating the same message again and again.

“I say it again and I’ll say it as much as I need to: stay at home,” Dr. Jazz Atwal told a media briefing as he warned about the potential to spread the virus over the holidays. There are people of all ages and walks of life who are at risk of severe outcomes if they catch it, he said.

“This holiday season will be make or break in our COVID outlook for 2021,” Atwal said.

The province announced Wednesday it will add personal care home residents, the elderly and more health-care workers to the priority list to get the COVID-19 vaccine starting in January.

In the past two days, 33 Manitobans have died of the virus — most of them personal care home residents, hospital patients, or seniors. The province has had some of the highest daily death counts this week, even as active daily cases of the virus declined.

On Wednesday, Atwal was asked about discrepancies between the number of care-home deaths reported by the province and the fatalities reported by individual care homes. On Tuesday, the province reported seven deaths at Oakview Place in Winnipeg, but the Extendicare facility said 12 residents had died. Atwal said he didn’t know why the discrepancy occurred or why there might be a lag in reporting of the provincial data.

“I think sometimes it’s about verification; we want to verify the deaths, we want to make sure on that,” he said.

The province reported 4,427 active COVID-19 cases, with 259 people in hospital and 37 people in intensive care on Wednesday.

The five-day COVID-19 test positivity rate was 10.4 per cent provincially and 10.2 per cent in Winnipeg.

Of the 201 new cases reported Wednesday, 15 were in the Interlake-Eastern health region, 31 were in the Northern health region, 14 were in Prairie Mountain, 23 cases were Southern Health and 118 cases were in the Winnipeg region.

To date, 605 Manitobans have died of COVID-19.

The 15 deaths reported Wednesday include:

— a man in his 70s from the Interlake–Eastern health region;

— a man in his 80s linked to an outbreak at Kin Place in Oakbank;

— a woman in her 70s from the Northern health region;

— a man in his 70s from the Southern Health region;

— a woman in her 70s linked to an outbreak at the Portage District General Hospital;

— a man in his 80s linked to an outbreak at Morris General Hospital;

— a man in his 40s from the Winnipeg health region;

— a man in his 40s linked to an outbreak at an outbreak at Grace Hospital Unit 3 North;

— a woman in her 60s from the Winnipeg health region; a woman in her 80s from the Winnipeg health region;

— a man in his 80s linked to an outbreak at Winnipeg’s Poseidon Care Centre;

— a man in his 80s linked to an outbreak at Winnipeg’s Park Manor Care Home;

— a woman her 90s from the Winnipeg health region;

— a woman in her 90s linked to an outbreak at Winnipeg’s Poseidon Care Centre;

— and a woman in her 90s linked to an outbreak at Winnipeg’s Oakview Place personal-care home.

Laboratory testing numbers show 2,208 tests were completed Tuesday, bringing the total number of lab tests completed since early February to 409,443.

fpcity@freepress.mb.ca