Pandemic Q&A: asymptomatic recovery numbers

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 11/05/2020 (2131 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Editor’s note: longtime readers of the Winnipeg Free Press might remember a regular feature called Answers, where, in a time before Google, we answered readers’ questions. Since even Google does not have all the answers regarding the COVID-19 pandemic, reporter Alan Small will attempt to answer your novel coronavirus queries. Send your questions to coronavirusquestions@freepress.mb.ca.

QUESTION: Manitoba Health staff has followed closely people who have tested positive for COVID-19. Of the 200-plus people in Manitoba who have recovered, how many were asymptomatic?

ANSWER: Provincial health officials say about three per cent of the total cases identified to date showed no symptoms of COVID-19. Doing the math, using statistics revealed May 8 by Dr. Brent Roussin, the chief provincial public health officer, three per cent of 284 cases works out to eight or nine Manitobans who have tested positive for COVID-19 yet were asymptomatic.

QUESTION: As the pandemic restrictions are eased, and people resume library visits and frequent stores, is it possible to get the coronavirus by touching library books or merchandise other people have handled?

ANSWER: The risk of COVID-19 transmission via food or food packaging, parcels or packages or paper products is low, provincial health officials say. There’s always a risk these items, or any surface, can be a pathway for the virus. To help prevent transmission, people should wash their hands often, especially after returning from the grocery store or other retailer, as well as before and after unpacking grocery bags, packages, envelopes and other parcels.

If you have placed any grocery bags on a countertop or table once returning from the store, clean those surfaces with hot, soapy water or use a household disinfectant.

QUESTION: A reader who is an employee for a Manitoba business is working from home to follow social-distancing recommendations. One day, the business may direct employees to resume working at the office. Are those employees entitled to work from home? What are the employees’ rights in terms of their safety?

ANSWER: A six-page provincial report titled Workplace Guidance for Business Owners offers information how businesses — not including health-care facilities — can adapt to COVID-19. The report, for instance, encourages businesses to allow employees to work from home where feasible and practical, and assign employees who are at increased risk of serious illness from COVID-19 to job tasks that lower their risk of exposure to the coronavirus.

The report also offers information to businesses to address the safety of employees who are required to report for work in-person.

The Workplace Safety and Health Act says: “A worker has the right to refuse work that they reasonably believe constitutes a danger to their safety and health, or that of another person should they perform the task.”

Work refusals lead to a legal process, which is described in a five-page report from the province that can be found at manitoba.ca.

alan.small@freepress.mb.ca