Despite detecting no COVID-19 cases in the province for the ninth consecutive day, Manitoba officials aren’t planning a victory lap.
Manitoba chief provincial health officer Dr. Brent Roussin announced the province is tracking four active cases of the virus during a July 9 testing update.
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“Manitobans need to expect to see cases. We need to prepare to see an increase in cases – higher than even in our first wave, possibly,” he said.
“What we want is that we don’t stop our progress because we see some cases… We’re going to do whatever we can to not get back into an area where we were in March and April with the large shutdowns.”
Roussin said the population should expect a shift in advice from the province on mask use heading later in the summer, toward the cold and flu season this fall.
“Manitobans are going to get used to hearing more and more about mask use,” he said.
“It’s probably going to become more and more of an approach we have here as we get closer to respiratory flu season. The big take-home message is that, for the most part, masks shouldn’t be seen as a substitute for other precautions that we have.”
Officials are preparing for an increase in flu vaccine demand during the fall and winter. In the aftermath of the 2009 H1N1 outbreak, demand for flu shots increased. Under one-third of Manitobans received a flu shot last year.
“We’re definitely going to see a respiratory virus season,” Roussin said.
“We’re going to have to treat it as a COVID-19 virus season, because we’re not going to know whether COVID-19 has made a return or not until it’s over.”
Roussin said the province wasn’t looking at active case numbers as its main benchmark.
“The fact that we have [high testing] capacity and the fact that we have really no restrictions on who can get tested, those are the important things for me rather than day by day number,” he said.
Manitoba has performed over 68,000 tests since the outbreak began.
Saskatchewan
Once again, more cases of COVID-19 have been found in Saskatchewan.
Five new cases were reported in the province July 9 – one each in the far north and central regions and in Saskatoon with two found in southern Saskatchewan. Five people are in hospital, including one person in intensive care in Saskatoon.
Forty-eight active cases are being tracked in Saskatchewan, including 32 in northern communities. Twenty-five of those cases are in the far north, the region that includes Creighton, Denare Beach and other Saskatchewan communities near Flin Flon. No cases have been reported from any northeast Saskatchewan community.
An increase in COVID-19 has been reported in Prince Albert by the Saskatchewan Health Authority (SHA), leading the group to provide an alert for people travelling through the city. Visitation at Victoria Hospital and at area long-term care homes has been restricted as a result.
Saskatchewan entered the next stage of its phase four reopening Thursday. According to the provincial Reopen Saskatchewan plan, bingo halls and casinos will be able to reopen as of July 9. Other public spaces, including indoor pools and rinks, arts, cultural centres like libraries and galleries, theatres, day camps, spray parks, outdoor pools and seasonal recreation areas, have been previously reopened.
The final portion of phase four, slated to include opening racetracks, rodeos, performances in restaurants and licensed establishments, car and trade shows and banquet and conference facilities, is planned to start July 16.
Some Ontario doctors have started offering a free shot that can protect babies from respiratory syncytial virus while Quebec will begin its immunization program next month.
The new shot called Nirsevimab gives babies antibodies that provide passive immunity to RSV, a major cause of serious lower respiratory tract infections for infants and seniors, which can cause bronchiolitis or pneumonia.
Ontario’s ministry of health says the shot is already available at some doctor’s offices in Ontario with the province’s remaining supply set to arrive by the end of the month.
Quebec will begin administering the shots on Nov. 4 to babies born in hospitals and delivery centers.
Parents in Quebec with babies under six months or those who are older but more vulnerable to infection can also book immunization appointments online.
The injection will be available in Nunavut and Yukon this fall and winter, though administration start dates have not yet been announced.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 21, 2024.
-With files from Nicole Ireland
Canadian Press health coverage receives support through a partnership with the Canadian Medical Association. CP is solely responsible for this content.
ISLAMABAD (AP) — Polio cases are rising ahead of a new vaccination campaign in Pakistan, where violence targeting health workers and the police protecting them has hampered years of efforts toward making the country polio-free.
Since January, health officials have confirmed 39 new polio cases in Pakistan, compared to only six last year, said Anwarul Haq of the National Emergency Operation Center for Polio Eradication.
The new nationwide drive starts Oct. 28 with the aim to vaccinate at least 32 million children. “The whole purpose of these campaigns is to achieve the target of making Pakistan a polio-free state,” he said.
Pakistan regularly launches campaigns against polio despite attacks on the workers and police assigned to the inoculation drives. Militants falsely claim the vaccination campaigns are a Western conspiracy to sterilize children.
Most of the new polio cases were reported in the southwestern Balochistan and southern Sindh province, following by Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province and eastern Punjab province.
The locations are worrying authorities since previous cases were from the restive northwest bordering Afghanistan, where the Taliban government in September suddenly stopped a door-to-door vaccination campaign.
Afghanistan and Pakistan are the two countries in which the spread of the potentially fatal, paralyzing disease has never been stopped. Authorities in Pakistan have said that the Taliban’s decision will have major repercussions beyond the Afghan border, as people from both sides frequently travel to each other’s country.
The World Health Organization has confirmed 18 polio cases in Afghanistan this year, all but two in the south of the country. That’s up from six cases in 2023. Afghanistan used a house-to-house vaccination strategy this June for the first time in five years, a tactic that helped to reach the majority of children targeted, according to WHO.
Health officials in Pakistan say they want the both sides to conduct anti-polio drives simultaneously.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Millions of people with private health insurance would be able to pick up over-the-counter methods like condoms, the “morning after” pill and birth control pills for free under a new rule the White House proposed on Monday.
Right now, health insurers must cover the cost of prescribed contraception, including prescription birth control or even condoms that doctors have issued a prescription for. But the new rule would expand that coverage, allowing millions of people on private health insurance to pick up free condoms, birth control pills, or “morning after” pills from local storefronts without a prescription.
The proposal comes days before Election Day, as Vice President Kamala Harris affixes her presidential campaign to a promise of expanding women’s health care access in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to undo nationwide abortion rights two years ago. Harris has sought to craft a distinct contrast from her Republican challenger, Donald Trump, who appointed some of the judges who issued that ruling.
“The proposed rule we announce today would expand access to birth control at no additional cost for millions of consumers,” Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra said in a statement. “Bottom line: women should have control over their personal health care decisions. And issuers and providers have an obligation to comply with the law.”
The emergency contraceptives that people on private insurance would be able to access without costs include levonorgestrel, a pill that needs to be taken immediately after sex to prevent pregnancy and is more commonly known by the brand name “Plan B.”
Without a doctor’s prescription, women may pay as much as $50 for a pack of the pills. And women who delay buying the medication in order to get a doctor’s prescription could jeopardize the pill’s effectiveness, since it is most likely to prevent a pregnancy within 72 hours after sex.
If implemented, the new rule would also require insurers to fully bear the cost of the once-a-day Opill, a new over-the-counter birth control pill that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved last year. A one-month supply of the pills costs $20.
Federal mandates for private health insurance to cover contraceptive care were first introduced with the Affordable Care Act, which required plans to pick up the cost of FDA-approved birth control that had been prescribed by a doctor as a preventative service.
The proposed rule would not impact those on Medicaid, the insurance program for the poorest Americans. States are largely left to design their own rules around Medicaid coverage for contraception, and few cover over-the-counter methods like Plan B or condoms.
