Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - December 31, 2020, Winnipeg, Manitoba C M Y K PAGE A3 TOP NEWS CITY EDITOR: SHANE MINKIN 204-697-7292 ? CITY.DESK@FREEPRESS.MB.CA ? WINNIPEGFREEPRESS.COM A3 THURSDAY DECEMBER 31, 2020 ? COVID-19 AT A GLANCE MANITOBA Confirmed: 24,513 Resolved: 19,408 Deaths: 661 Active: 4,444 CANADA Confirmed: 572,982 Resolved: 484,583 Deaths: 15,472 (As of 6 p.m. on Wednesday) The latest from Manitoba: ? Provincial health officials announced 130 new cases of COVID-19 and two more deaths in Mani- toba Wednesday. There are 4,444 active cases in Manitoba, with 248 people in hospital, 32 of them in intensive care. The five-day test positivity rate is 12.6 in Manitoba, and 11.9 in Winnipeg. Of the new cases announced Wednesday, 92 are in the Winnipeg health region, eight in Southern Health; 11 in Interlake-Eastern; eight in Prairie Mountain; and 11 in Northern Health. ? Premier Brian Pallister said Wednesday the province will hold back fewer doses of the corona- virus vaccine for booster shots than previously planned in an effort to inoculate more Manitobans sooner. Pallister said he expects 40,000 more Manitobans to be vaccinated for COVID-19 by the end of January. So far, 2,470 doses have been delivered. The premier added Manitobans should learn early next week whether any code-red restrictions will be soon lifted. The restrictions are currently set to be in place until Jan. 8. ? The Manitoba government issued 193 warn- ings and 58 tickets through COVID-19 enforcement the week of Dec. 21-27. The majority were issued for gatherings in private residences. Three of the tickets were issued to businesses in the amount of $5,000, 51 tickets were issued to individuals with a fine of $1,296 and the remaining four tickets were issued to individuals not complying with mask rules at indoor public places, carrying a fine of $298. Officials noted Wednesday that 44 of the 51 tickets to individuals were connected to gather- ings in private residences. The latest from elsewhere: ? The federal government says it plans to require travellers to test negative for COVID-19 before landing in Canada. Intergovernmental Affairs Minister Dominic LeBlanc says cabinet ministers decided Wednesday morning to quickly enact the new requirements. All passengers on flights entering Canada will require a negative PCR test three days before their arrival, but LeBlanc didn't say when the requirements will be in place. The announcement comes in the wake of criticisms that federal travel restrictions and quarantine rules have been too lax. ? A Colorado man in his 20s has been reported as the first in the U.S. with the more contagious variant of the coronavirus. He's from a mostly rural expanse outside the Denver area and recovering in isolation, according to state officials. His condition was not disclosed. U.S. health officials say the man's the lack of reported travel history suggests the variant is already spreading in the U.S. ? China is encouraging tens of millions of migrant workers not to travel home during Febru- ary's Lunar New Year holiday to prevent spread of the coronavirus. The call issued by the National Health Commission is extraordinary because the Lunar New Year is China's most important traditional holiday. It's the only time of the year many workers can travel home to see their fam- ilies. China has limited local transmission of the coronavirus, but authorities remain on high alert about a possible resurgence. ? Britain has authorized use of a second COVID-19 vaccine, becoming the first country to greenlight an easy-to-handle shot that its developers hope will become the "vaccine for the world." The government says the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency has made an emergency authorization for the vaccine developed by Oxford University and U.K.-based drugmaker AstraZeneca. The vaccine could hold great appeal in less developed parts of the world because of its low cost and the fact that it can be kept in refrigerators rather than at ultra-cold or freezer temperatures. Quote: "We must ensure that all people at risk everywhere, not just in countries who can afford vaccines, are immunized." - WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus stresses urgent need for US$4 billion to support equitable global access to COVID-19 vaccines On Wednesday, Public Safety Minis- ter Bill Blair said Wednesday the Win- nipeg proposal is not his government's current focus. "Quite frankly, we would only move forward on a measure like that if the evidence and the data and the advice of our health officials supported it," Blair told reporters. "What we're talking about today is a very different thing, and that's adding pre-boarding testing, as an additional measure of testing." The Conservatives demanded to know the fine print such as when the plan would take effect, whether the three-day period starts when a plane takes off or when it arrives in Canada and whether airlines will have to rebook passengers who show up without a test result. Numerous countries in Europe and the Caribbean require passengers to produce a negative PCR test before getting on a plane bound for that des- tination. MacAfee said some travellers who fly out of Winnipeg are currently required to produce such test results, depending on their destination. The travel industry argues that a tiny percentage of COVID-19 cases in Canada has been linked to travel, but some epidemiologists suggest that could be due to the difficulty in prov- ing such exposures. In any case, MacAfee took Wednes- day's announcement as proof Ottawa would consider evidence when choos- ing its travel restrictions, particularly as more vaccines are given and case rates decline. "This points to the need to have testing and protocols in place to reinforce the point that travel is safe," MacAfee said. Several other countries, including the U.S., have implemented a negative test requirement for incoming passen- gers. The identification of new strains of COVID-19 in the U.K. and South Africa has only heightened concerns about cross-border spread of the virus. The government had months to implement a similar system in Canada, but instead rolled out a haphazard announcement in response to head- lines, said Conservative health critic Michelle Rempel. "Our MP offices have already been receiving inquiries this morning from panicked travellers abroad on this new requirement," she said in a statement Wednesday. "Justin Trudeau has had months to get his act together on this front, and today's detail-free announcement is irresponsible." Government officials have asked people to stay home and avoid non- essential travel to slow the spread of COVID-19, all the while acknowledging they can't block Canadians from leav- ing or re-entering the country. That hasn't stopped people from hop- ping on planes to head abroad, includ- ing politicians who find themselves in hot water over their vacations, includ- ing Ontario Finance Minister Rod Phil- lips, who faced calls for his resignation after being caught in the Caribbean island nation of St. Barts. - with files from The Canadian Press dylan.robertson@freepress.mb.ca TRAVELLERS ? FROM A1 '. we would only move forward on a measure like that if the evidence and the data and the advice of our health officials sup- ported it' - Public Safety Minister Bill Blair OTTAWA - Federal Health Minister Patty Hajdu isn't impressed provinces such as Manitoba ceased COVID-19 vaccinations over Christmas. "Vaccination saves lives. Every day that we delay, in fact, is another risk for a person in a long-term care home," Hajdu told reporters Wednesday. "I think it's Canadians that expect that we get on with vaccinations, as quickly as possible." Manitoba suspended its COVID-19 vaccination clinics for five days this month; it remains unclear who on the local vaccine roll-out team made that decision, and why. The province, mean- while, insists this was the plan since the day it received its first doses of vaccine. Ontario similarly suspended its vac- cination process, prompting an apology from the retired soldier overseeing that province's deployment plan. Instead of expressing regrets, the Manitoba government defended its choice, saying Tuesday decisions are taken to "maximize the efficiency and effectiveness" of the immunization pro- gram. "We have not halted or altered our plans," the Pallister government added Wednesday. "Every person who was scheduled to get a vaccine dose in this first round has received one. There has been no delay, and to suggest otherwise is misleading." However, while jabs were suspended, Shared Health instructed health-care workers to continue working over the holidays, noting in a staff memo: "This virus does not take days off or recog- nize holidays." Hajdu said Wednesday that Ottawa has moved heaven and earth to get vac- cine doses into Canada, and provinces have to hold up their end of the bargain. She did not specifically name any prov- ince. "It's really important that, as we deliver federally on our commitment for early doses. that provinces and territories continue their hard work, to get vaccines in arms, so we can all save lives and stop the spread," she said. Hajdu is probably referring to other provinces, the Manitoba provincial gov- ernment said in a statement. "If the federal government is looking to criticize any province for vaccine de- lays, they need to look elsewhere than Manitoba," a spokesman wrote. Maj.-Gen. Dany Fortin, the soldier leading Canada's vaccine distribution operation, said Ottawa is closely co-or- dinating with provinces on the arrival of the first doses. He suggested the military will soon shift to making sure staffing and sup- plies are in place to accept much larger quantities of vaccines. "The next round will be (to) ensure that we share best practices between provinces and territories, and make sure we have a ready workforce to ad- minister at scale, across the country," Fortin said. dylan.robertson@freepress.mb.ca DYLAN ROBERTSON Health minister disappointed in vaccination delays M ANITOBA shouldn't ease up on public health restrictions until daily COVID-19 case counts drop to single digits, says an intensive care doctor who's been following the province's pandemic response. Dr. Anand Kumar, an attending ICU physician at Health Sciences Centre in Winnipeg, said a daily caseload of 10 to 20 new infections - ideally less than 10 - would mean contact tracers can do their work most effectively, and public health officials could employ smaller, targeted shutdowns to stop transmission of the novel coronavirus. To get there, the province would need to log a 93 per cent decline in daily new case counts, based on the 130 an- nounced Wednesday. Meanwhile, another two Manitobans have died of the virus - the lowest daily number of lives lost since the fall. Hospitalization rates, while still relatively high, appear to be heading in the right direction, too. It's a good sign, but it's not time to loosen up yet, Kumar said. "If we ease up right now, those num- bers will rebound. I don't know what the government plans. My strong pref- erence would be that they really let the numbers move down to minuscule lev- els, like less than 10 or 20 cases a day, preferably less than 10, before they ease things up," said the professor of medicine and medical microbiology at the University of Manitoba. "Whereas if you're still (at) hundreds of cases a day, or 60, 70, 80, I'm not confident that they can effectively contact trace." Kumar weighed in Wednesday, near- ly two months after he and a group of 200 other doctors signed an open letter to Premier Brian Pallister, urging the province to immediately implement strict, lockdown-type public health or- ders - or deal with "grave peril," as pandemic consequences spiralled out of control. The province went into code red re- strictions about 10 days after the letter was issued. Kumar said he doesn't know if the Nov. 2 message was a catalyst to tightening restrictions but feels good about how the province is now respond- ing to the pandemic - including the decision Wednesday to hold back fewer doses of the two-shot Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine to allow more people to receive a first jab right away. A dramatic drop in daily case counts is well within reach if Manitobans keep following the rules over the next few weeks, he said. "The numbers can come down as fast as they went up." Current public health orders are in effect until at least Jan. 8. Acting deputy chief provincial public health officer Dr. Jazz Atwal cautioned this week Manitobans shouldn't expect them to be lifted any time soon; how- ever, Premier Brian Pallister hinted Wednesday at loosened restrictions in the near future as the vaccine rollout progresses. Of the 130 new cases announced Wednesday, 92 were in the Winnipeg region, 11 each in the Interlake-Eastern and Northern Health regions, and eight each in Prairie Mountain and Southern Health regions. Test positivity rates were at 12.6 per cent provincewide, and 11.9 per cent in Winnipeg. The two deaths announced Wednes- day were a woman in her 70s linked to an outbreak at Thompson General Hospital, and a woman in her 80s linked to an outbreak at Fairview care home (Brandon). A total of 661 Manitobans have died of COVID-19. As of Wednesday, there were 337 people in hospital with COVID-19: 248 active cases and another 89 non-infec- tious COVID-19 patients still in care. The province's intensive care wards had 32 patients with active COVID-19, and four no longer infectious. On Wednesday, the province an- nounced an outbreak had been declared at the Benito Health Centre, about 500 kilometres northwest of Winnipeg. katie.may@freepress.mb.ca Province warned to wait for major drop in daily case counts before lifting restritions Don't ease up too soon: ICU doc KATIE MAY Care-home staff cases fall THE number of personal care-home workers suffering from COVID-19 is at its lowest since October, the Winnipeg Regional Health Author- ity said Wednesday. Forty-three staffers were grappling with the novel coronavirus, while 83 care-home residents were listed as positive COVID-19 cases, officials said. There were 29 outbreaks among the city's 39 long-term care facilities. Of those with outbreaks, 18 had no cases reported among residents. "At some sites with outbreaks, staff planning is shift-to-shift and remains challenged," the WRHA said. "The overall staffing situation at Winnipeg (care homes) has improved in recent days. While some sites with outbreaks continue to identify staffing needs, staffing has been stable so far during the holidays, and is being closely monitored." Meanwhile, larger-scale outbreaks continue at the Convalescent Home of Winnipeg, Oakview Place, Poseidon Care Centre and River East care home. MIKAELA MACKENZIE / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Dr. Jazz Atwal, acting deputy chief provincial public health officer, says Manitobans shouldn't expect restrictions to be lifted any time soon. A_03_Dec-31-20_FP_01.indd A3 2020-12-30 10:55 PM ;