Skip to content

Got questions for Manitoba Minister of Health and public health officers?

Find out more about what our province is planning on Tuesday evening’s telephone Town Hall. That’s April 13 th and it’s for all rural/northern Manitobans.
1

Find out more about what our province is planning on Tuesday evening’s telephone Town Hall. That’s April 13th and it’s for all rural/northern Manitobans.

 

As part of Manitoba’s public engagement efforts, the Honourable Heather Stefanson, Minister of Health and Seniors Care along with Dr. Brent Roussin, Dr. Joss Reimer and Johanu Botha from the vaccine implementation task force are hosting telephone town halls with Manitobans from across the province, focused on answering questions on the province's COVID-19 immunization plans. 

There was a sense of urgency in Dr. Brent Roussin’s public presentation and Q & A with the press today, Monday, April 12. He’s worried that we are entering Wave 3 and facing variants of SARS-CoV-2, the COVID-19 virus.

Bear in mind that Prairie Mountain Health new cases have been on a roller coaster – small hills and valleys. We were up to about 18 new cases just a few days ago, whereas there were 20 new cases on Dec. 7th 2020, and by March there were few to no new cases until about a week ago.

New variants are more transmissible. Are they more deadly? It’s all over the news that the variants represent a significant increased threat.

Even recently, since the variants have shown up in Manitoba, there hasn’t been a huge spike in death rates around the province, although new cases have climbed back up over 100 per day – there were 114 new cases today, Monday. But many, if not most seniors, the most vulnerable, are vaccinated and Manitoba had no deaths to report.

However, there is concern because younger people are among the new cases.

There are 1,370 active cases as of today. Over the year and a month since the pandemic was declared there have been 949 people pass away in Manitoba attributed to COVID-19. And our health system records that 33,008 individuals have recovered from COVID-19.

Our population and our deaths have risen steadily in Canada over the last 20 years. There doesn’t appear to be a huge spike in our deaths in 2020, according to statistics.*

Dr. Roussin said that with people not abiding by health rules, there’s been a spike in Winnipeg particularly. Indeed, cases are up there. He said this was due to gatherings, house parties etc. He says that if people would follow the restrictions that are in place there would be no need for MORE restrictions. However, if cases spike, it looks like the government might tighten restrictions again.

A rural and northern Manitoba telephone Town Hall session is planned for Tuesday, April 13 at 6:30 p.m. CDT.

Register for Rural and Northern Telephone Town Hall by going to

 https://engagemb.ca/restartmb-pandemic-response-system

 

*According to information from Statistica, (based on StatsCan) the death rate in Canada has been on a steady incline since the year 2000, with 217,230 deaths that year; 287,460 deaths in 2019; and 300,310 deaths in 2020 – the reporting period each year is from July1 to June 30.

push icon
Be the first to read breaking stories. Enable push notifications on your device. Disable anytime.
No thanks