Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - October 15, 2021, Winnipeg, Manitoba C M Y K PAGE A5 FRIDAY, OCTOBER 15, 2021 ● WINNIPEGFREEPRESS.COM A 5NEWS I COVID-19 PANDEMIC G is for Glasses Hub International Save On Foods WE’RE THERE FOR YOU COMMUNITY PROFILE Major Sponsors Payworks Manitoba Chicken Producers ID Fusion Prairie Battery Terracon Development Ltd. Winnipeg Free Press Entrust Financial Services Qualico Communities Associated Auto Auctioneers CIBC Wood Gundy FWS G is for Glasses HUB International Save On Foods Birchwood Mikkelsen Coward Assiniboine Credit Union Manitoba’s Credit Unions Dillon Consulting Kemel Cartons Con-Pro Industries Canada Ltd. It was a beautiful day at the St. Boniface Golf Club for the sold-out Lee Newton Memorial Golf Tournament. The annual flagship event raised $62,710. Participants enjoyed 19 holes of golf, sponsored food and beverage stations, scores of contests and prizes, while supporting a great cause! Thank you to all our major sponsors, prize and product sponsors, teams and attendees. You are all Harvest Stars, working together to ensure no Manitoban goes hungry. For a complete list of sponsors and photo gallery, please visit: HarvestManitoba.ca/golf Lee Newton Memorial Golf Tournament Qualico Communities ID Fusion Prairie BatteryPink Ladies Little Brown Jug Volunteers Manitoba Chicken Producers PayworksAssociated Auto Auction Terracon Development COVID-19 AT A GLANCE Cases: MANITOBA Confirmed: 61,900 Resolved: 59,712 Deaths: 1,226 Active: 962 CANADA Confirmed: 1,673,408 Resolved: 1,609,652 Deaths: 28,421 Active: 35,335 (As of 6 p.m. Thursday) The latest from Manitoba: ● Manitoba reported 107 new COVID-19 infections and two pandemic deaths on Thursday. New cases were detected in all health regions, including 21 cases in the Winnipeg health region, 45 in the Northern health region, 23 in Southern Health, eight in Interlake- Eastern, and 10 in Prairie Mountain Health, according to the province’s pandemic dashboard. Sixty-eight of the new cases were in people who were not fully vaccinated, 39 were in vaccinated individuals, and eight were in partially vaccinated people. The five-day test positivity rate provincewide is 3.8 per cent and 2,573 tests were performed Wednesday. A total of 93 patients were being treated for COVID-19 in hospital, including 17 in intensive care. Across the province, 962 cases were considered infectious, including 510 which were identified as a variant of concern. As of Thursday, 85.9 per cent of eligible Manitobans had at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine and 82.2 per cent were fully vaccinated. ● Manitoba issued 31 pandemic enforcement tickets the week of Oct. 4-10. They include three $1,296 tickets to individuals for various offences; 18 $298 tickets to individuals for failure to wear a mask in an indoor public place; and 10 $5,000 tickets to businesses including ABC Auto Service in Brandon; Anytime Fitness in Selkirk; Benny’s Astoria Pizzaria in Shoal Lake; Chaise Café & Lounge in Winnipeg; Fitness Zone in Steinbach; two Winnipeg locations of Morfit Training Centre; Valley Bowling in Winkler; Village Nightclub and Lounge in Winnipeg; Tuxedo Village Family Restaurant/Monstros- ity Burger in Winnipeg. Vaccine eligibility: ● All Manitobans born on or before Dec. 31, 2009, may now schedule a first-dose vaccine appointment. There must be a minimum of 28 days between the first and second shots. Third dose shots are also now available to eligible Manitobans. The latest from elsewhere: ● Saskatchewan reported five more deaths due to COVID-19 Thursday as the province continues to have the highest weekly fatality rate in the country. The death toll due to the pandemic has risen to 769. But the number of active cases in the province has dropped to 4,294 as 315 new infections were announced Thursday. That’s the lowest number of active cases in Saskatch- ewan since Sept. 17. W ASHINGTON — Canada still can’t afford to take any chan-ces when it comes to COVID-19, Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Free- land said Thursday — and that includes requiring travellers to show a negative test result before entering the country. Freeland happened to be in Washing- ton this week for multilateral meetings with her fellow G7 and G20 finance ministers, as well as officials from the World Bank and International Monet- ary Fund. Her visit overlapped with the news that fully vaccinated Canadian travel- lers would be once again allowed to drive across the U.S. border early next month. The Biden administration’s rules don’t include requiring a recent COVID-19 test — unlike Canada, which made the sophisticated $200 tests a cornerstone of its strategy for easing its own border restrictions earlier this year. Critics of the restrictions say requir- ing Canadians to submit to a costly test every time they return from visiting the U.S. remains a significant and un- necessary hurdle. But even in the face of evidence that the latest wave of COVID-19 is on the wane, Freeland said the benefits of the test requirement vastly outweigh the risks of doing away with it. “I had my tests done to go home this afternoon,” she told a news conference Thursday at the Canadian Embassy. “When it comes to finishing the fight against COVID, the Canadian approach — which has been to follow science, to fol- low the recommendations of public health authorities, to err on the side of caution — has served us really, really well.” Canada has spent more than $280 bil- lion on supporting businesses and sup- plementing incomes, she added — to say nothing of the personal sacrifices and tragedies Canadians themselves have had to endure over the last 19 months. “My priority is to finish the fight against COVID, to allow our economy to continue to reopen, to allow our kids to continue to go to school. And yes, that does mean we need to continue to be careful.” The euphoria that followed Tuesday’s news that the U.S. would be easing its land-border restrictions quickly gave way to demands from business groups, tourism associations and ordinary trav- ellers alike, all of them urging Ottawa to rethink the test requirement. The U.S. Travel Association has esti- mated the Mexican and Canadian bor- der closures have been costing Amer- ican businesses $1.5 billion in travel exports — domestic spending by for- eign visitors — every month. Freeland wouldn’t rule out the possi- bility that the requirement is eliminat- ed at some point in the future, provided that such a decision has the blessing of public health officials. “I am not making predictions about the future,” she said. The federal government has tried to be “thoughtful” and “flexible” when it comes to measures aimed at curbing the spread of the virus, Freeland added, always in consultation with health ex- perts and with the rapidly changing cir- cumstances of the pandemic in mind. But “the rules are the rules,” Free- land said, “and Canadians should ex- pect to follow them.” South of the border, some of those rules are still unclear. One key issue is whether the U.S. will consider travellers who received doses of two different vaccines — a group that includes upwards of four million Canadians, by most estimates — to be fully vaccinated for the purposes of en- tering the country. The Centers for Disease Control is currently considering the question of mixed-dose vaccinations, armed with a new study — yet to be peer-reviewed — that suggests the mix-and-match strat- egy is effective for booster shots. The agency, however, has advised from the outset against mixing vac- cines for an initial two-dose regimen, a policy that directly contradicts the Canadian approach. — The Canadian Press Freeland refuses to budge on border testing requirement JAMES MCCARTEN SEAN KILPATRICK / THE CANADIAN PRESS FILES Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland says benefits of testing outweigh the risks of not. A_07_Oct-15-21_FP_01.indd A5 2021-10-14 10:55 PM ;