Manitoba announced 40 new cases of COVID-19 in the province on Thursday, the largest single-day increase so far during the pandemic.
Thursday’s numbers bring the total number of cases up to 167, including 11 in the Prairie Mountain Health region, said the province’s chief public health officer, Dr. Brent Roussin. The total number of deaths remains at one, and five people are in intensive care.
The news follows the announcement on Wednesday that community transmission had started in the province. Roussin said there are five cases that Manitoba Health can’t trace back to travel or contact with another infected person. At this point, community transmission is only happening in Winnipeg, but he said everyone in the province should be taking the same social distancing measures.
“We want to ensure that people are aware that once we see this virus in the community at low levels, it’s possible to acquire that virus should you not practise social distancing,” he said.
“Stay home if you can, it limits your risk to acquiring this virus, it limits the risk to others of spreading this virus, so stay home as much as you can. That will be your biggest contribution to decreasing the spread of this virus.”
Now is not the time for any travel, even to cottages, Roussin said. While people may believe it allows them to more effectively isolate, it will put increased strain on rural health-care systems if they do get sick.
Several outbreaks of the virus have been identified in Manitoba health-care facilities, including at a personal care home in Gimli and the Health Sciences Centre in Winnipeg. Approximately 40 nurses at the Health Sciences Centre are self-isolating after possible exposure to the virus, while one worker at Betel Home in Gimli tested positive, he said.
In response, Lanette Siragusa, Shared Health’s chief nursing officer, announced health-care workers in hospitals, testing centres and other places will begin wearing surgical masks, gloves and gowns during all contact with patients. She said Manitoba Health has enough personal protective equipment to sustain the measure and more will be distributed according to need.
Shared Health is working on implementing the change at sites across the province and she said more information would be shared with people Thursday.
“We have plans for this eventuality and the escalation of cases in recent days at health-care facilities means it is time for us to implement this change,” she said.
Hospital patients and personal care home residents who had close contact with people who tested positive for COVID-19 are also being tested, she said.
“These cases cause us all a great deal of concern, and we cannot emphasize enough the responsibility that all Manitobans have to do what we can to slow the spread of this virus,” she said.
In response to a question about opening hospitals dedicated to the virus, Siragusa said Manitoba Health is planning COVID-19 wards in hospitals across the province. It isn’t feasible to have all cases in one building, but hospitals — including the Brandon Regional Health Centre — could focus staff in one area to treat all patients with the virus.
“The concept is we can’t have it all in one site, but we can have them all united in one unit so the staff are concentrated there,” she said.
According to a spokesperson for Prairie Mountain Health, 342 people had been tested so far at the Brandon testing site as of the end of the day on April 1. At the Dauphin testing site, 23 people had been tested as of April 1.
Both testing sites are by referral only and are not walk-in clinics.
As of Thursday, the Cadham Provincial Laboratory had performed 11,327 tests in total.
