Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - October 7, 2020, Winnipeg, Manitoba <s> ■e- C MAK O- PAGE A1 0 Suit your fancy. Ten w omen each day are diagnosed with cancer in Manitoba. You can help them. Purchase your gift, box today. guardianangelwpg.ca or 204-927-5433 29th Annual Guardian Angel Benefit for Women’s Cancer agf CancerCareManitoba ^ FOUNDATION_ All funds raised stay in Manitoba. tCCamhnan CREDIT UNIO* SPECIAL RATE 2.00 % 5-Year Mortgage Rate subject to change. Terms and conditions apply. 'Surreal moment' Jets take centre Cole Perfetti 10th overall in NHL Entry Draft / D1 WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 7, 2020 A A MB FOUNDED IN 1872 ■ & & & ^^A & & & A^^ Winnipeg Free Press ► CONNECT WITH CANADA'S HIGHEST READERSHIP RATE WEATHER: MAINLY SUNNY. HIGH 14 — LOW 3 Health workers nervous as COVID cases rise Impact of job cuts hits hard, unions say CAROL SANDERS ANXIETY is growing on the front lines of Manitoba’s health-care system as COVID-19 cases and the pandemic death toll continue to rise, unions say. “It’s raised the anxiety level of those who work in acute, non-acute, and home care settings,” said Debbie Boissonneault, president of Canadian Union of Public Employees Local 204. The union represents 14,000 workers at more than 50 care facilities in Manitoba. Members are worried about getting Military leaders quarantined after U.S. official tests positive LOLITA C. BALDOR WASHINGTON — Top military leaders in the U.S. were under selfquarantine Tuesday after a senior Coast Guard official tested positive for the coronavirus, the Pentagon said. The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Mark Milley, and the vice-chairman, Gen. John Hyten, were among those affected, U.S. officials said. Military leaders who were in contact with Adm. Charles W. Ray, the vice commandant of the Coast Guard, were told Monday evening he had tested positive, and they were all tested Tuesday morning, several U.S. officials said. Pentagon spokesman Jonathan Hoffman said in a statement none had exhibited symptoms or had tested positive. Ray was in a meeting of the Joint Chiefs of Staff late Friday morning in what’s called the Tank — the classified meeting room in the Pentagon. Officials said that is where most of the military leaders were exposed to him, but he also had other meetings with officials. The news stunned officials at the Pentagon. Top leaders there have largely remained free of the virus, although there have been a number of outbreaks across the active-duty force and the reserves around the U.S. and overseas. Overall, more than 47,000 service members had tested positive for the virus, as of Monday, 625 had been hospitalized and eight had died. It is not known how Ray contracted the virus. He attended an event for Gold Star military families at the White House on Sept. 27 that was hosted by U.S. President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump. • MILITARY, CONTINUED ON A2 infected at work — and that they may be taking the novel coronavirus home to their families, Boissonneault said Tuesday, as hospitalizations in the province soared. Public health officials announced 56 new COVID-19 cases — the highest daily count since Sept. 26 (65). The majority of Tuesday’s cases were reported in Winnipeg (31) and the Interlake-Eastern Health region (22). On the same day, the number of people hospitalized with COVID-19 doubled to 28, from 14 on Sept. 29. Half of those hospitalized in the province are in Winnipeg. “What we’re seeing now with hospitalizations rising again is that level of risk for those caring for people in hospitals is rising again,” said Bob Moroz, president of the Manitoba Association of Health Care Professionals, which represents 6,600 allied health-care workers, from paramedics to respiratory therapists. “These are the workers who’ve been there on the front line right from the beginning of the pandemic, and we’re still there,” he said. “A lot of these folks will have used up income protection (benefits) and sick time and are really worried.” Winnipeg — in its second week of pandemic restrictions, mandating masks in public and limiting gathering sizes to 10 — has the vast majority of active COVID-19 cases in the province. On Tuesday, there were 781 cases in the province; 671 in the capital city. The number of new cases wasn’t expected to decline until at least one incubation period (14 days) had passed. So far, it’s not looking good, health-care industry members said. “We were already in an acute nursing shortage,” Manitoba Nurses Union president Darlene Jackson said Tuesday. “Now there’s more and more concern among nurses that they can’t keep up.” Some areas of the health-care system are short 20 to 24 per cent of the nurses they require, Jackson said. “When I talk to nurses, they’re anxious and concerned: ‘What is the government going to do about this?’” The impact of provincial healthcare cuts and transformation prior to COVID-19 are hitting hard now, she said. “We were not well-prepared to weather the pandemic.” Even as Manitobans did their part to flatten the curve early in the pan- demic so health-care leadership would have time to prepare and put plans in place, “We’ve had very little progress or feedback,” Moroz added Tuesday. Elsewhere, the rising number of COVID-19 cases has left many frontline workers “overwhelmed, scared, terrified,” said the president of the Manitoba Government and General Employees’ Union. “We’re second in the country” in terms of the number of cases per capita, Michelle Gawronsky said in response to Manitoba’s latest COVID-19 bulletin. “I beg this government to please fund everything in health care that is needed to flatten the curve... I beg them to put the people before the dollar.” • COVID, CONTINUED ON A2 MIKAELA MACKENZIE / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Speaker Myrna Driedger oversees a dry run of the semi-virtual throne speech Tuesday. The chamber will accommodate half the MLAs, while the others will participate virtually, later today. Manitoba MLAs prepare for socially distanced throne speech LARRY KUSCH WHILE it will lack the usual pomp and ceremony, a new session of the Manitoba legislature begins today with the throne speech and a return to regular sitting days for the first time since March. Behind the scenes, MLAs and legislative assembly staff have been working for months to develop a com- bined in-person and virtual structure that will accommodate the 57 elected members. MLAs did a live walk-through Tuesday, with some members in the chamber and others appearing remotely. Afterwards, both government and opposition officials appeared satisfied with the result. “I anticipate we’re going to have a few glitches,” Speaker Myrna Driedger said. “We watched what’s happened in the House of Com-mons...We’re all in a big learning curve.” Lt.-Gov. Janice Filmon is scheduled to begin delivering the throne speech, which sets out the government’s legislative agenda, shortly after 1:30 p.m. Rather than reading the document to a packed room, with close to 100 guests jammed in seats behind MLAs on the floor of the chamber, as is the custom, the atmosphere will be less charged. Eighteen government MLAs, nine NDP MLAs and one Liberal member will occupy half the normal number of seats, ensuring they are two metres apart. • THRONE, CONTINUED ON A2 0 INSIDE 'DAY IN COURT' DESIRED STUNNED TO BE A STAT LAWYER DISBARRED ROCK GOD GONE Family accused of staging hate crime will return to city — once restrictions lifted: lawyers / B1 Reporter wrote about COVID-19 for months, now he describes contracting it / A4 Immigration lawyer accused of defrauding 27 clients out of $6.5M / B1 Eddie Van Halen, the king of the fiery solo that fuelled the hard rock band, dead at 65 / C6 -e- -e- A_01_Oct-07-20_FP_01.indd A1 0 2020-10-06 10:23 PM ;