Manitoba should wait a full incubation period after the holidays before it considers easing COVID-19 restrictions.
Doing so any earlier would be premature and could cost lives.
Manitoba’s current code-red restrictions are set to expire Jan. 8. With daily COVID-19 cases falling and thousands of vaccines expected to be administered this month, there may be a temptation to start rolling back public-health orders.
Everyone is tired of living like hermits, but that would be a mistake — at least until a full two weeks after Jan. 1.
Everyone is tired of living like hermits.
There’s little doubt many Manitobans visited family and friends outside their households over the holidays. The province announced 44 tickets were handed out to people who unlawfully gathered in private residences between Dec. 21 and 27 (up from 35 the previous week). Those are just the people who got caught. There were undoubtedly many more.
Some people also travelled outside the province over the holidays; there was a marked increase in flights arriving and departing around Christmas, including many from western provinces. The Pallister government refused to reinstate the 14-day self-isolation rule for people returning from western provinces after lifting it in June. That means those travellers did not have to self-isolate when they arrived in Manitoba. (There are already four identified flights from western provinces in late December that carried passengers who tested positive for COVID-19).
New Year’s celebrations were also high-risk, and it’s likely many Manitobans socialized with others outside their households on Dec. 31 and Jan. 1.
Household interactions continue to be one of the chief sources of transmission.
The Public Health Agency of Canada says COVID-19 symptoms can appear up to 14 days after infection. The vast majority (97.5 per cent) develop symptoms within 11.5 days. The province should, at least, extend current restrictions to Jan. 15.
COVID-19 case numbers have come down in recent weeks. That’s solid evidence the measures in place have been working. But it’s also due, in part, to a significant drop in daily testing. The test-positivity rate in Manitoba has not dipped below double digits since early November, which means there’s still plenty of virus circulating in the province. It was 10.7 per cent Monday, down only slightly from 11.5 per cent two weeks ago. The World Health Organization recommends a rate below five per cent before easing restrictions.
COVID-19 hot spot Alberta has a test-positivity rate of seven per cent.
Hospitalization rates in Manitoba are also stubbornly high. The number of patients in hospital with COVID-19 has dropped since early December, but has plateaued over the past two weeks. There were 340 COVID-19 patients in hospital Monday, virtually unchanged from 343 a week ago. The number of COVID-19 patients in ICU Monday (41) was up slightly from a week ago (37). There was a total of 113 patients in ICU Monday (157 per cent of normal capacity), up from 111 Thursday.
Those numbers are not sustainable.
Hospitalization rates and the test positivity need to come down further before any measures are relaxed, even after Jan. 15.
Premier Brian Pallister said last week there would “almost certainly” be an easing of restrictions in the new year. It was a vague statement without a timeline. However, it’s troubling he would even suggest it before the holiday data comes in.
Dr. Brent Roussin, the provincial chief public health officer, said Monday no decisions have been made whether restrictions will be eased after Jan. 8. He said Manitobans will get more information on that later in the week.
Lifting restrictions prematurely would be reckless. It could drive up case numbers and give the public a false sense of security. The combined impact of holiday celebrations and a new, more contagious variant of COVID-19 that originated in Britain (and is now in Canada) could make January the worst month yet.
Manitobans made a lot of sacrifices in recent weeks to flatten the COVID-19 curve and prevent hospitalizations from climbing further. It would be unforgivable if those gains were erased because of a hasty move to loosen restrictions.
tom.brodbeck@freepress.mb.ca
Tom Brodbeck Columnist
Tom has been covering Manitoba politics since the early 1990s and joined the Winnipeg Free Press news team in 2019.
HALIFAX – The Nova Scotia government says it could be months before it reveals how many people are on the wait-list for a family doctor.
The head of the province’s health authority told reporters Wednesday that the government won’t release updated data until the 160,000 people who were on the wait-list in June are contacted to verify whether they still need primary care.
Karen Oldfield said Nova Scotia Health is working on validating the primary care wait-list data before posting new numbers, and that work may take a matter of months. The most recent public wait-list figures are from June 1, when 160,234 people, or about 16 per cent of the population, were on it.
“It’s going to take time to make 160,000 calls,” Oldfield said. “We are not talking weeks, we are talking months.”
The interim CEO and president of Nova Scotia Health said people on the list are being asked where they live, whether they still need a family doctor, and to give an update on their health.
A spokesperson with the province’s Health Department says the government and its health authority are “working hard” to turn the wait-list registry into a useful tool, adding that the data will be shared once it is validated.
Nova Scotia’s NDP are calling on Premier Tim Houston to immediately release statistics on how many people are looking for a family doctor. On Tuesday, the NDP introduced a bill that would require the health minister to make the number public every month.
“It is unacceptable for the list to be more than three months out of date,” NDP Leader Claudia Chender said Tuesday.
Chender said releasing this data regularly is vital so Nova Scotians can track the government’s progress on its main 2021 campaign promise: fixing health care.
The number of people in need of a family doctor has more than doubled between the 2021 summer election campaign and June 2024. Since September 2021 about 300 doctors have been added to the provincial health system, the Health Department said.
“We’ll know if Tim Houston is keeping his 2021 election promise to fix health care when Nova Scotians are attached to primary care,” Chender said.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 11, 2024.
ST. JOHN’S, N.L. – Newfoundland and Labrador‘s chief medical officer is monitoring the rise of whooping cough infections across the province as cases of the highly contagious disease continue to grow across Canada.
Dr. Janice Fitzgerald says that so far this year, the province has recorded 230 confirmed cases of the vaccine-preventable respiratory tract infection, also known as pertussis.
Late last month, Quebec reported more than 11,000 cases during the same time period, while Ontario counted 470 cases, well above the five-year average of 98. In Quebec, the majority of patients are between the ages of 10 and 14.
Meanwhile, New Brunswick has declared a whooping cough outbreak across the province. A total of 141 cases were reported by last month, exceeding the five-year average of 34.
The disease can lead to severe complications among vulnerable populations including infants, who are at the highest risk of suffering from complications like pneumonia and seizures. Symptoms may start with a runny nose, mild fever and cough, then progress to severe coughing accompanied by a distinctive “whooping” sound during inhalation.
“The public, especially pregnant people and those in close contact with infants, are encouraged to be aware of symptoms related to pertussis and to ensure vaccinations are up to date,” Newfoundland and Labrador’s Health Department said in a statement.
Whooping cough can be treated with antibiotics, but vaccination is the most effective way to control the spread of the disease. As a result, the province has expanded immunization efforts this school year. While booster doses are already offered in Grade 9, the vaccine is now being offered to Grade 8 students as well.
Public health officials say whooping cough is a cyclical disease that increases every two to five or six years.
Meanwhile, New Brunswick’s acting chief medical officer of health expects the current case count to get worse before tapering off.
A rise in whooping cough cases has also been reported in the United States and elsewhere. The Pan American Health Organization issued an alert in July encouraging countries to ramp up their surveillance and vaccination coverage.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 10, 2024.
All orders are protected by SSL encryption – the highest industry standard for online security from trusted vendors.
Bizarre Sunlight Loophole Melts Belly Fat Fast! is backed with a 60 Day No Questions Asked Money Back Guarantee. If within the first 60 days of receipt you are not satisfied with Wake Up Lean™, you can request a refund by sending an email to the address given inside the product and we will immediately refund your entire purchase price, with no questions asked.
