Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - April 17, 2020, Winnipeg, Manitoba C M Y K PAGE A1 Thank You ESSENTIAL WORKERS Donate to the COVID-19 Relief FundSupport our Health-Care Heroes Front line health-care providers need your support now more than ever. Misericordiafoundation.com or 204-788-8458 CONNECT WITH CANADA'S HIGHEST READERSHIP RATE WEATHER: SUNNY. HIGH 10 - LOW 3 � FRIDAY, APRIL 17, 2020 FOUNDED IN 1872 MORE ON CORONAVIRUS DINE TOGETHER, APART How to organize an online party to cure the coronavirus blues / C1 GOOD NEWS, BAD NEWS Top doc orders more travel restrictions but opens farmers markets, garden centres / A3 BUMMER OF A SUMMER Fringe the latest Manitoba festival to cancel due to pandemic / C2 FAMILY ALLOWED IN Assisted living facilities strapped after home care cut / A4 M ANITOBA announced Thurs-day it is expanding COVID-19 test criteria to include symp- tomatic workers in essential services, while the premier acknowledged that increased testing will play a key role in reopening the provincial economy. The province's chief public health officer, Dr. Brent Roussin, said all workers or volunteers with symptoms of the novel coronavirus at work- places that have been identified as essential - from retail and wholesale to communications, construction and transportation - will now be tested. As well, any symptomatic person who lives with a health-care worker, first responder or employee in such settings as correctional facilities, shelters, long-term care or residential facilities will also be tested. In recent days, the number of tests carried out at the Cadham Provincial Laboratory has declined, but it's not been due to a backlog at the lab, Rous- sin said. "The low numbers all reflect the demand - the amount of people showing up for testing (under the old criteria)," he said. The head of the laboratory, Paul Van Caeseele, said he and his colleagues have always managed to turn around results within 48 hours, with more equipment coming on board as the number of tests increases. "There's always a maximum capac- ity, but right now it's dictated by how many specimens we receive in a day," he told the Free Press. The recent drop in demand has allowed health officials to expand test- ing criteria, Roussin said. "As we see our numbers of tests dwindling, now we are going to ex- pand access to lower-risk groups try- ing to ensure we keep getting a good sampling of the population," he told a media briefing. Increased testing will give health officials and the public greater confidence in the timing of efforts to get the economy back on track, but there's always the fear that acting too soon will lead to the resurgence of the virus, Premier Brian Pallister said. On Wednesday, Prime Minister Jus- tin Trudeau said when Canada is able to loosen controls on physical distanc- ing and begin ramping up economic activity that rapid testing on a wide- scale basis will be an essential part of the country's continued vigilance. It's unclear how soon Manitoba and other provinces will have the greater and quicker testing capability they'll need. Dr. Joel Kettner, a former Manitoba chief public health officer, said he doesn't see any harm in Trudeau's testing aspirations. "(But) if you say mass testing, one has to define that," he said. One potential plan would be to test any person with symptoms who works in an area where they can infect others. "An aggressive testing strategy would say, 'If you have symptoms don't go to work until we test you. If you test negative then you might go to work (if you're feeling well enough). If you're testing positive you're staying home."' With certain categories of work- ers who have close dealings with the public, such as health-care workers and grocery clerks, you might test them periodically, even if they don't have symptoms, said Kettner, an as- sociate professor at the University of Manitoba. Province expands virus testing Symptomatic workers in essential jobs, those who live with health worker added to list LARRY KUSCH IN a non-descript building in the corner of the Health Sciences Centre campus, staff at Cadham Provincial Laboratory are using cutting-edge ma- chines to probe a microscopic killer. Behind its doors, which only those with special clearance are allowed to enter, staff have tested more than 18,000 samples for COVID-19 in the past month, a number that has ramped up by the hundreds every few days. "There's a team here that's always on watch for Manitobans," lab director Paul Van Caeseele told the Free Press. On Thursday, he explained the daily routine of employees who are working around the clock. "The morale, strangely enough, is quite positive. This is (why) they came to work for Cadham," he said. Testing sites around the province send samples to the Winnipeg lab in plastic tubes with a liquid that stabilizes the virus. Known as a viral transport medium, most are a nasopharyngeal swab taken from deep inside the nose, but Cadham also accepts throat swabs and vials of coughed-up sputum. The front-end workers check those samples for any leaks, such as when a cap was screwed on the wrong way, and if the name on the printed requi- sition document matches the one on the tube. A very small amount is cancelled on those grounds, and a request is sent asking for the person to be retested. Lab staff 'silent firefighters of disease' DYLAN ROBERTSON MIKAELA MACKENZIE / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS The number of tests performed recently has dropped because demand has declined. WASHINGTON - Prime Minister Justin Trudeau tried to let Donald Trump down gently Thursday, warn- ing that Canada is still a long way from being ready to agree to relax mutual travel restrictions along its border with the United States. Trudeau said he discussed the issue with the U.S. president during a videoconference with fellow G7 leaders, and the two agreed, given the unique relationship between the two countries, that they would continue to take a different approach to managing bilateral travel with each other from the ones they use with the rest of the world. That does not mean, however, that a decision to relax the travel ban is im- minent, he said. "The work that we continue to do to keep our citizens safe, while co- ordinating very carefully, is unlike our approaches with other countries around the world. There's a recogni- tion that as we move forward, there will be special thought given to this relationship," Trudeau said. "But at the same time, we know that there is a significant amount of time still before we can talk about loosen- ing such restrictions." Trump, who has made it abun- dantly clear he's in a hurry to get the American economy back on its feet, seemed to suggest Wednesday that his impatience might well extend to the northern border - a shift in the usual balance of anxieties that has tended to define the Canada-U.S. relationship. The toll of the COVID-19 outbreak in the U.S. exceeds that of anywhere else in the world, with more than 560,000 active cases and 33,000 deaths to date. Canada, by comparison, has about 18,500 active cases and more than 1,000 deaths. Trump seemed to suggest the two were comparable. "Our relationship with Canada is very good - we'll talk about that. It will be one of the early borders to be released," the president said. "Cana- da's doing well, we're doing well, so we'll see." It's been nearly a month since the two countries negotiated their 30-day ban on non-essential travel in both directions, a remarkable agreement that exempted the flow of trade and commerce, as well as vital health care workers such as nurses who live and work on opposite sides of the border. In terms of permitting the move- ment of goods and services into the U.S., the arrangement has held up better than expected, notwithstand- ing a few hiccups, said Mark Agnew, director of international policy for the Canadian Chamber of Com- merce. "Most of the challenges that we have received are around individuals trav- elling for work purposes," Agnew said. "Companies are finding a variance in how officers and specific points of en- try are interpreting rules for identical situations for travellers going across." Trudeau deflects Trump's overture to open border ? TESTS, CONTINUED ON A2 ? LAB, CONTINUED ON A2 JAMES MCCARTEN ? BORDER, CONTINUED ON A2 Prime Minister Justin Trudeau Faceoff against COVID-19 One of first NHLers to contract coronavirus, Manitoba's Hawryluk describes 'scary' battle / C4 A_01_Apr-17-20_FP_01.indd A1 2020-04-16 10:57 PM ;