Manitoba is dealing with five more deaths and 241 new cases of the novel coronavirus, the province reported Monday, prompting Manitoba health officials to change their guidance when it comes to self-isolation.
Dr. Brent Roussin, Manitoba’s chief provincial health officer and Lanette Siragusa, chief nursing officer for Shared Health, spoke to media at 12:30 p.m.
“Everyone who is symptomatic and everyone in the same household with someone who is symptomatic, should self-isolate pending test results,” he said.
Roussin said as of Monday, every region in Manitoba is as the restricted level orange, while Winnipeg is now at the critical level red.
Despite the new restriction, Roussin said it’s not the time to panic.
“We will get through this together.”
Premier Brian Pallister spoke with media Monday about the new restrictions implemented Monday and said it was a “tremendously difficult” weekend for those who lost loved ones.
“We are doing everything we can to help halt the spread of this virus.”
Pallister said that while the government has “taken action” to fight the virus, it’s up to Manitobans to help each other as well.
“I’m going to ask Manitobans for some help right now,” he said, pointing to Dr. Teresa Tam, Canada’s chief public health officer.
“She said last week the most significant thing Canadians can do … was to reduce their personal contacts by half.
“Here in Manitoba, I believe we need to reduce it more than that. At least 75 per cent.”
He added that wait times to book appointments online are less than a minute, and that more than 10,000 Manitobans have booked testing appointments since Oct. 26.
Sunday’s five-day COVID-19 test positivity rate was 8.9 per cent and 312 new cases of the virus were identified as of 9:30 a.m., which brings the total number of lab-confirmed cases in Manitoba to 6,034.
The test positivity rate in Winnipeg was 9.9 per cent.
Sunday, local doctors began urging the provincial government to move Manitoba to a full lockdown to flatten the curve of COVID-19 and protect the health-care system.
“I consider this a grave situation,” said Dr. Kelly MacDonald, chair of the Infectious Diseases program for the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority and infectious disease expert at Health Sciences Centre in Winnipeg.
“We need to implement very major strategies that have a blanketing approach,” Dr. MacDonald said.
“It’s like when you have a forest fire, you have to throw a blanket down or water bombers to completely control it, not just little spot effects.”
On Monday, the Winnipeg Metropolitan Region moved to the “critical” red level on the province’s pandemic response system, but Dr. MacDonald said it doesn’t go far enough.
“We need a complete shutdown to control it,” she said.
-With files from Brittany Greenslade and Amber McGuckin