Discussions

The broad brushstrokes are entirely appropriate in this case. It's not just one or two of these reporters that are busy accusing Public Health and the Premier of failing, it has become a noticeable majority.  
 
Journalism isn't about the reporter's opinions, their political biases, or their need to blame someone for everything bad that happens. It's about conveying facts to the public so that people can form their own opinions and make good decisions. Their 'questions' should be used to bring out information in support of that goal, not just as as free time on a virtual podium for them to blame the people briefing them.  
 
I for one am very glad to see the recent shift in tone during the briefings from both Public Health and Pallister himself. Until recently, being politically correct has required them to state and restate their belief that people would do the right things here and we could beat this while minimizing the damage to the economy, people's livelihoods, etc. The sad reality though is that as a population we are collectively too stupid to understand this and act accordingly. We are a society full of self-entitled special snowflakes with little to no regard for each other, and for whom rules only really apply to other people. Even worse, we then have the gall to blame our current situation on the exact people who laid out the roadmap to protect us from it, because obviously we ourselves can't possibly be the problem here.  
 
We should be thanking Drs Roussin, Atwal and their teams for the lives and livelihoods they have saved over many months in this very difficult balancing act but instead of realizing how much worse it could have been we're busy looking for scapegoats for the situation we've managed to put ourselves in through our own stubbornness and ignorance.  
 
What many in the press have been doing has only amplified this problem, since the angry sheep out there see them blaming these people and jump on the bandwagon without even attempting to think about whether it's real or justifiable.

When we spiral into these fights about media, media credibility, accusations of media agenda and guilting media for asking tough questions of one’s chosen politician as they’ve always been asked to do I feel like we’re getting sucked a little too far into that USA 2016-2020 partisan twilight zone. I’d like to think that in Canada we’re still better than that.  
 
You can be both thankful for what Drs Roussin, Atwal and political officials have been tirelessly doing yet still ask questions of those that are ultimately accountable for decisions made on a day-to-day basis throughout this response. To try to undermine the media's role in that regard and support an environment where a politician or gov official is above questioning and criticism is dangerously walking toward the authoritarian line.  
 
Perhaps one of the best examples of the role of media came at the start of this third wave when what I'd call starter restrictions were in place. CBC's Kives broke that based on data not yet shared the province was actually on track for the worst-case scenario. The next morning new the more serious restrictions were announced... the very ones that are the subject of this thread. Perhaps that was a co-incidence, but after that story broke the public was then that much more informed about the state of the virus and I suspect that story served as an initial waking up point for a lot of people in the province that needed it who may not necessarily have been taking as seriously what was already taking place elsewhere in the country. In a world where we're blanket criticizing media we're saying that that story shouldn't have been written and that's something personally I'd have a hard time getting behind. 

Facts on children and Covid from the CDC:  
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/daily-life-coping/children/symptoms.html  

Important to keep in mind that these kinds of things will be evolving as more is learned and as variants emerge with potentially different properties. What might’ve been the case or what might've been the answer to these questions a year ago might not be the same today. This story from last month talks about an increase in hospitalization of young people more recently as the B.1.1.7 (aka UK) variant has become common:
https://www.cnn.com/2021/04/12/health/b117-covid-variant-young-patients/index.html   

In Manitoba we’ve now had more than 10,000 variant cases including 675 in Prairie Mountain. In Manitoba right now, more than half of our active cases are showing as being variant cases (2686 of 4676). 1062 of those are identified as B.1.1.7 and 1609 show as unspecified. See the facts on variants in the province at:  
https://manitoba.ca/covid19/updates/cases.html#voc  

Since May 3 Prairie Mountain Health has had an increase of 754 cases on the Manitoba stats dashboard. 126 of that increase is in the age 10-19 and 112 under the age of 10. Together those two age brackets have made up just shy of 1/3 of the increase in cases since the 3rd (32%). Factoring into that will be that wider vaccinations started from the elderly and worked on down to younger ages, with age 12 and older having only been approved for the vaccine recently.  

As far as serious side effect, from the first link of this post I’m guessing this is what’s being referred to…  “CDC and partners are investigating a rare but serious medical condition associated with COVID-19 in children called Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome in Children (MIS-C). We do not yet know what causes MIS-C and who is at increased risk for developing it.” 

This link is from Alberta but gives recent info on MIS-C from earlier this week:
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/alberta-doctors-inflammatory-syndrome-covid-children-1.6040882

This isn't a let your guard down post. We're in the middle of the serious third wave of Covid and continue to face hospitalization numbers that show what the virus and newer variants are capable of doing. Serious public health orders are in place by the province to keep contacts to a bare minimum and give the virus as few transmission vectors as possible.  
 
At the same time I think it's important to while also seeing the numbers that paint a scary picture, make note of numbers that give one reason to believe we might be heading in the right direction.
 
With today's data and a case increase of +2 Brandon has now had single-digit increases for seven consecutive days. The average increase in data for Brandon over those seven days is 4.71... the first time in May that the average has come below 5.  Granted that average is still higher than at any time between Feb 1 and April 28. 
 
The data shows that the Brandon district reached a vaccine uptake rate of 66.6% today... of note since it has us at the 2/3 mark. At the same time that number has gone up by just 0.9% since the Thursday update. Two days does not a trend make and hopefully we see it continue to rise meaningfully.  
 
No corner has been turned unless health officials say so... especially when the Prairie Mountain region just came off of its biggest single-day increase of the year and especially when hospitalization numbers are where they are in Manitoba. At the same time as an outsider observing the daily data there are some signs that give reason for optimism that if we keep doing what we're doing and keep getting the vaccine number up we can get to the light at the other end of this. One unnecessary cluster and we find ourselves on the other side of any kind of trend that might've been showing up over this past week but for everyone that's been doing as asked so far thank you and please keep it going!  
 
On those newest public health orders in place as of today, please see the link below for the full text as posted by the province:  
https://manitoba.ca/asset_library/en/proactive/20212022/orders-soe-05282021.pdf

So, I was driving by the Canadain Tire/Tim Hortons parking lot yesterday and noticed a HUGE group of cars hanging out with people standing around talking and some did not even have masks on. I know there is website form you can fill out out how do you get someone out there right away? Do you call the police? Anyone know? Call me a snitch I do not care be adults and follow the rules then I won't have to snitch

In my neighborhood there is a childcare provider who believes it is okay to have her friends over after hours without any masks or social distancing. This is a nightly event and apparently they must think all restrictions have been dropped or they don't care about society, drinking and socializing are their priority. I know some neighbours have called police but they don't do much, plus they do have other things to do that might be more important than babysitting people who can't follow guidelines. I really hope if, or I should say when these individuals, get Covid they remember they could have done more to protect themselves and the healthcare workers that are going to be stuck taking care of them. Parents also might not be pleased if the contract Covid because their childcare provider irresponsible.  
 
Yes some of you will argue daycare workers don't know what parents do and your right, they too need to behave. Its also your choice to work as a childcare provider. As a parent I expect childcare providers to be responsible and take necessary precautions to protect not only themselves but the children they care for.  
 
I know most of us are following the rules and doing our part but until those of you who think youre privileged do as well, we are never getting out of code red. Who knew it would be so difficult for adults to follow rules!