The leaders of Manitoba’s opposition parties are backing a union’s call to shut down the Maple Leaf Foods plant in Brandon, Man., after four cases of COVID-19 involving workers at the plant.
“We want them to shut the plant down,” Jeff Traeger, president of United Food and Commercial Workers Local 832, told CBC News on Thursday morning.
The union said in a memo to workers early Thursday that three more cases had been identified among non-production unionized employees at the pork processing facility.
That came after one other worker in the plant tested positive for COVID-19, which prompted more than 70 employees who may have been exposed to go into self-isolation.
The first worker who tested positive, who also wasn’t on the production line, hasn’t been at work since July 28, the union said Wednesday.
The UFCW was alerted about the three new cases around 10 p.m. on Wednesday, Traeger said. Now the union, which represents nearly 2,000 workers at the plant, wants Maple Leaf to stop production until at least Aug. 10, until more information is known about any of the 60 outstanding tests among workers.
“We’re looking for Maple Leaf to shut the plant down until all of those test results come back, have a proper deep-cleaning of the plant done, make sure people have time to self-isolate and then start up production again after … they can say with confidence that they have it under control,” Traeger said.
Later Thursday, the leader of Manitoba’s Opposition NDP backed that call.
“[If] the union is saying there’s an issue and we have to hit the pause button, then we support that,” Wab Kinew told reporters during a scrum at the Manitoba Legislature.
“This isn’t necessarily just about the workers in the plant, as important as they are,” said Kinew. “If the situation there gets worse, it could potentially pose a threat to the broader community.”
Opposition NDP Leader Wab Kinew believes the Maple Leaf processing plant in Brandon, Man,. should be shut down temporarily. (Ron Boileau/CBC)
Manitoba Liberal Leader Dougald Lamont, who also spoke with reporters Thursday, said because meat processing plants have been hot spots for COVID-19 outbreaks elsewhere in North America, the situation in Brandon cannot be taken lightly.
“It’s something that their union has recommended. It should be shut down temporarily because there needs to be a full screen of all the employees done,” said Lamont.
CBC News asked Maple Leaf for an interview, but the company instead sent an emailed statement saying it plans to keep the plant open for now.
“After a careful and detailed review of the circumstances around the cases, it appears very likely that the [employees] contracted COVID-19 in the community,” the company said in a Thursday morning statement.
“We feel confident that our plant environment is safe,” Maple Leaf’s statement said, citing measures such as daily health screening, temperature monitoring and use of personal protective equipment by employees.
Maple Leaf has notified the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, the union and its employees of the positive tests, the statement said.
Despite the plea from the UFCW, Maple Leaf says it will not be closing its plant in Brandon. (CBC)
The first worker at the plant who tested positive passed the medical screening on July 28 before starting work that day, but started feeling sick during the day, UFCW said.
The latest three employees to test positive all work in the same department as each other, but not the same department as the first case, Traeger said.
Maple Leaf says all four employees are recovering at home.
Parts of the plant were deep-cleaned over the long weekend.
One other employee, a security guard at the plant, tested positive for COVID-19 in May.
‘Enormous effort’
Health Minister Cameron Friesen wouldn’t comment on the Maple Leaf cases during a COVID-19 briefing on Thursday, but did say Maple Leaf and many other businesses have been working hard to implement COVID-19 precautions.
“We have employers and workplaces across this province who have put enormous effort into getting this right, into keeping their employees and keeping the public safe,” Friesen said.
“[Maple Leaf] is one of those who has been making incredible efforts to partition, to sequester staff, to be able to know where they’re coming in or where they’re going out in order to be able to respond.”
Health Minister Cameron Friesen would not speak to the Maple Leaf cases, but said a plant shut down won’t happen unless public health officials recommend doing so. (Ron Boileau/CBC)
Traeger’s biggest concern is having an outbreak like those at meat processing plants elsewhere in Canada earlier in the pandemic.
Three Alberta plants — the JBS plant in Brooks, the Harmony Beef plant in Balzac and the Cargill plant in High River — all saw positive cases.
“The nature of the type of work these people do is shoulder to shoulder,” Traeger said. “Once the virus gets into a plant like this, it quite easily spreads, and that’s what we’re worried about.”
In April, the Manitoba Liberals sent letters to the provincial government asking for a plan to prevent COVID-19 outbreaks at meat processing plants, Lamont said Thursday.
“We haven’t seen a plan,” he said.
Chief Provincial Public Health Officer Dr. Brent Roussin, who also wouldn’t comment directly on the Maple Leaf cases, said public health officials here are working with people in the meat processing industry because of the outbreaks elsewhere.
“Something that we would look very carefully for is if we see evidence of transmission within a facility. [That] would be concerning to us,” said Roussin.
Health officials haven’t seen evidence of transmission within the plant so far, he noted.
Health officials haven’t seen evidence of transmission within the Maple Leaf plant so far, which is a good thing, said Roussin. (John Woods/The Canadian Press)
When asked if the province will order the plant to be shut down, Friesen said action will be taken based on advice from public health officials.
That response didn’t satisfy the NDP leader.
“It’s a convenient degree of separation for the elected officials in the Pallister government to say they’re just following public health advice,” said Kinew.
“In this instance, I think that it’s pretty clear that the government should take much more decisive action to address the situation in Brandon.”
Brandon Walmart, Tim Hortons employees test positive
Elsewhere in Brandon, the Tim Hortons location on Middleton Avenue temporarily closed its doors after an employee tested positive for COVID-19, the company said in an emailed statement Thursday afternoon.
The employee last worked at the coffee shop on Aug. 2, and tested positive on Aug. 5.
Employees who worked closely with the positive case are now self-isolating for 14 days. All of the employees will be compensated for lost wages, the company said, and the restaurant will remain closed until it can be sanitized and a separate crew of employees can be brought in.
Meanwhile, Walmart said an employee at its Brandon store recently tested positive for COVID-19 as well. The person last worked in the store on July 26, a spokesperson for the company said.
The store is still open, but the spokesperson said it is taking measures including increased cleaning, wellness checks for all employees, and limiting the number of customers in the store at one time.
The three additional cases are among non-production unionized employees at the Brandon pork processing facility. 2:01
The Canadian government says it will donate up to 200,000 vaccine doses to fight the mpox outbreak in Congo and other African countries.
It says the donated doses of Imvamune will come from Canada’s existing supply and will not affect the country’s preparedness for mpox cases in this country.
Minister of Health Mark Holland says the donation “will help to protect those in the most affected regions of Africa and will help prevent further spread of the virus.”
Dr. Madhukar Pai, Canada research chair in epidemiology and global health, says although the donation is welcome, it is a very small portion of the estimated 10 million vaccine doses needed to control the outbreak.
Vaccine donations from wealthier countries have only recently started arriving in Africa, almost a month after the World Health Organization declared the mpox outbreak a public health emergency of international concern.
A few days after the declaration in August, Global Affairs Canada announced a contribution of $1 million for mpox surveillance, diagnostic tools, research and community awareness in Africa.
On Thursday, the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention said mpox is still on the rise and that testing rates are “insufficient” across the continent.
Jason Kindrachuk, Canada research chair in emerging viruses at the University of Manitoba, said donating vaccines, in addition to supporting surveillance and diagnostic tests, is “massively important.”
But Kindrachuk, who has worked on the ground in Congo during the epidemic, also said that the international response to the mpox outbreak is “better late than never (but) better never late.”
“It would have been fantastic for us globally to not be in this position by having provided doses a much, much longer time prior than when we are,” he said, noting that the outbreak of clade I mpox in Congo started in early 2023.
Clade II mpox, endemic in regions of West Africa, came to the world’s attention even earlier — in 2022 — as that strain of virus spread to other countries, including Canada.
Two doses are recommended for mpox vaccination, so the donation may only benefit 100,000 people, Pai said.
Pai questioned whether Canada is contributing enough, as the federal government hasn’t said what percentage of its mpox vaccine stockpile it is donating.
“Small donations are simply not going to help end this crisis. We need to show greater solidarity and support,” he said in an email.
“That is the biggest lesson from the COVID-19 pandemic — our collective safety is tied with that of other nations.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
Canadian Press health coverage receives support through a partnership with the Canadian Medical Association. CP is solely responsible for this content.
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.
