Manitoba logs 130 new COVID-19 cases, two more deaths

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This article was published 30/12/2020 (1909 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Manitoba shouldn’t ease up on public health restrictions until daily COVID-19 case counts drop to single digits, says an intensive care doctor who’s been following the province’s pandemic response.

Dr. Anand Kumar, an attending ICU physician at Health Sciences Centre in Winnipeg, said a daily caseload of 10 to 20 new infections — ideally less than 10 — would mean contact tracers can do their work most effectively, and public health officials could employ smaller, targeted shutdowns to stop transmission of the novel coronavirus.

To get there, the province would need to log a 93 per cent decline in daily new case counts, based on the 130 announced Wednesday.

Meanwhile, another two Manitobans have died of the virus — the lowest daily number of lives lost since the fall. Hospitalization rates, while still relatively high, appear to be heading in the right direction, too.

It’s a good sign, but it’s not time to loosen up yet, Kumar said.

“If we ease up right now, those numbers will rebound. I don’t know what the government plans. My strong preference would be that they really let the numbers move down to minuscule levels, like less than 10 or 20 cases a day, preferably less than 10, before they ease things up,” said the professor of medicine and medical microbiology at the University of Manitoba.

“Whereas if you’re still (at) hundreds of cases a day, or 60, 70, 80, I’m not confident that they can effectively contact trace.”

Kumar weighed in Wednesday, nearly two months after he and a group of other doctors signed an open letter to Premier Brian Pallister, urging the province to immediately implement strict, lockdown-type public health orders.

The province went into code red restrictions about 10 days after his letter, and another open letter signed by 200 doctors, were issued.

Kumar said he doesn’t know if the Oct. 30 message was a catalyst to tightening restrictions but feels good about how the province is now responding to the pandemic — including the decision Wednesday to hold back fewer doses of the two-shot Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine to allow more people to receive a first jab right away.

A dramatic drop in daily case counts is well-within reach if Manitobans keep following the rules over the next few weeks, he said. “The numbers can come down as fast as they went up.”

Current public health orders are in effect until at least Jan. 8.

Acting deputy chief provincial public health officer Dr. Jazz Atwal cautioned this week Manitobans shouldn’t expect them to be lifted any time soon; however, Premier Brian Pallister hinted Wednesday at loosened restrictions in the near future as the vaccine roll-out progresses.

Of the 130 new cases announced Wednesday, 92 were in the Winnipeg region, 11 each in the Interlake-Eastern and Northern Health regions, and eight each in Prairie Mountain and Southern Health regions.

Test positivity rates were at 12.6 per cent provincewide, and 11.9 per cent in Winnipeg.

The two deaths announced Wednesday were a woman in her 70s linked to an outbreak at Thompson General Hospital, and a woman in her 80s linked to an outbreak at Fairview care home (Brandon).

A total of 661 Manitobans have died of COVID-19.

As of Wednesday, there were 337 people in hospital with COVID-19: 248 active cases and another 89 non-infectious COVID-19 patients still in care.

The province’s intensive care wards had 32 patients with active COVID-19, and four no longer infectious.

On Wednesday, the province announced an outbreak had been declared at the Benito Health Centre, about 500 kilometres northwest of Winnipeg.

katie.may@freepress.mb.ca