Top doctor tempers fervour for further loosening of rules

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This article was published 25/01/2021 (1866 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

WHILE new COVID-19 infections in southern regions of the province trend downward, Manitoba’s top doctor is reminding the public it doesn’t take much to spark a spike.

Manitoba reported 113 new virus cases Monday, including 33 in Winnipeg. The hard-hit Northern Health region had the highest number: 58.

The province’s pandemic death toll rose by five, to reach 804.

Chief provincial public health officer Dr. Brent Roussin said, since Manitoba moved last week to reopen retail shopping, hair salons and loosened rules on gathering sizes, business owners, operators and the public have expressed desire to see more.

“And so, we’ve, of course, with these loosenings… we receive a lot of correspondence from a lot of individuals and sectors about wanting to open,” Roussin said. “And if we allowed opening to that degree from all of the requests we’ve received, we’d be wide open.

“We’d be more open than we were in October and November, and so we can only expect our numbers to be even higher than the trajectory we were getting back then… We all just have to accept that we can’t do that,” Roussin said. “We can’t be back in that spot. We cannot overrun our health-care system.”

On Monday, 272 people were in provincial hospitals being treated for COVID-19, including 36 in intensive care (145 were active infections).

The current five-day COVID-19 test-positivity rate was 10.8 per cent provincially, and 6.8 per cent in Winnipeg.

The last time daily reported new cases in the Winnipeg region fell below 33 was Oct. 17, when 20 were logged.

On Sunday, 1,595 lab tests were completed.

Of the 113 new cases reported Monday, 10 were in Interlake-Eastern, six in Prairie Mountain, and six in Southern Health.

Roussin reminded Manitobans to be tested for COVID-19 if they experience even mild symptoms, in order to keep spread of the novel coronavirus under control.

“We continually hear from our public health nurses who do the contact tracing, that they’re finding cases that have been out and about for lengthy periods of time because they had only mild symptoms,” Roussin said.

“Even with mild symptoms, stay home. Get tested.”

Roussin said contact tracers also report people have been to going to work, school and daycare while displaying symptoms.

“We just have to avoid that if we want to continue our progress and open things up,” he said.

On Monday, five more pandemic deaths were reported by the province: a Winnipeg woman in her 50s; a woman in her 70s from Prairie Mountain; a Winnipeg woman in her 70s linked to an outbreak at Concordia Place; a woman in her 80s linked to an outbreak at McCreary/Alonsa Health Centre; and a man in his 80s linked to an outbreak at Dauphin Regional Health Centre.

There continue to be high rates of COVID-19 activity in the north, Roussin said.

“Just like anywhere else, when we see outbreaks, it’s caused by gatherings,” he said. “It’s the nature of this virus, the more we gather, the more spread we’re going to have.”

Should people travel from the northern region into the south, where restrictions are relaxed, or vice-versa, the targeted regional approach could be compromised, Roussin warned.

“When that targeted approach is compromised, it doesn’t mean we loosen up the heavily restricted areas, it means we have to tighten up everywhere.”

danielle.dasilva@freepress.mb.ca

carol.sanders@freepress.mb.ca