Discussions

377 active Covid cases in the Brandon district reported in Monday's Provincial data update. Overwhelmingly an all-time high. Before this latest wave, the highest at any point in time was 198... the current total being almost double.  
 
Of particular interest in today's update, of the increase in cases in Prairie Mountain Health 95% of new cases were in people under the age of 60.  
 
The Province in today's update has said that 75% of cases in Manitoba are now the omicron variant.  

Today's data has the Provincial test positivity rate at a pandemic-high of 19% for the trailing five days. 

More data in the ongoing Covid facts thread at:  
https://ebrandon.ca/messagethread.aspx?message_id=1069877&cat_id=14&startnum=301  
 
The virus is clearly widely in active circulation in the community at this point, and this won't yet be accounting for any impact of Christmas or Boxing Day or remaining backlogged tests that the province is working through. Please take this into serious account when making decisions that involve group settings or gatherings.. especially since Omicron clearly spreads more easily than anything seen to-date and considering the heavy strain already on our medical system.  

The Province will be holding a media conference at 2pm where more restrictions are expected to be announced. 
 
Health Authorities around the globe continue to re-iterate that vaccines, including booster shots when eligible, are the best defense. The province's ongoing vaccine page is located at:  
https://www.gov.mb.ca/covid19/vaccine/index.html

With the large growth in cases, Province has updated public health orders coming into effect on Tuesday.  
 
Please see the link below for full details on changes that include:  
 
- gatherings must not exceed 50 per cent of the usual capacity of the space, or 250 people, whichever is less. This includes:  
• indoor and outdoor public gatherings;  
• restaurants, licensed premises, food courts and socials;  
• movie theatre and concert halls;  
• performing arts venues and outdoor ticketed performing arts events;  
• museums and art galleries;  
• outdoor and indoor sporting and recreational facilities including dance schools and martial arts studios;  
• gyms, fitness centres and yoga studios;  
• indoor and outdoor ticketed sporting events;  
• indoor recreational businesses;  
• seasonal facilities and events;  
• religious services and Indigenous cultural events; and  
• bingos, casinos and businesses with VLTs.  
 
- liquor sales in restaurants and licensed premises must end at 10 p.m. daily.  
 
https://news.gov.mb.ca/news/?archive=&item=53078

Important to note that BWK game is in fact at reduced capacity per rules from last week;  
https://wheatkings.com/article/game-on-all-wheat-king-tickets-to-be-honoured-in-reduced-capacity  
 
These newest rules that I think by my interpretation would limit to 250 technically don’t take effect until midnight, so they are by the rules doing nothing wrong tonight… though personally I would feel better if they were able to on short notice find a way to be proactive tonight and get the jump on the rule change knowing why it’s coming into place.  
 
The other event that has me curious is City of Brandon Winterfest, indoors and outdoors at Sportsplex on Wednesday. The weather is already gonna be awful for outdoor stuff (high of -27, windchill no doubt less pretty than that). Not in a position to say anything being planned would have to be changed to be on side with rules but hopefully if all goes ahead according to plan it’s able to smoothly run with minimal risk under these circumstances both in terms of COVID and in terms of weather.  

The restrictions put in place are there for very critical reasons and signed off on by folks that know 10x better than you or I how vital they are to reduce the spread and limit strain on the medical system and balance the risks we face.   
 
Not sure how closely you’ve been following, but because of how long the delta wave was hanging around our medical system and ICU have already been at the brink before omicron and this massive ongoing case spike. Just two weeks ago we had to go as far as asking Ottawa for help:  
 
https://news.google.com/articles/CBMiWGh0dHBzOi8vd3d3LmNiYy5jYS9uZXdzL2NhbmFkYS9tYW5pdG9iYS9tYW5pdG9iYS1mZWRlcmFsLWdvdmVybm1lbnQtaWN1LW51cnNlcy0xLjYyODQ0NTnSASBodHRwczovL3d3dy5jYmMuY2EvYW1wLzEuNjI4NDQ1OQ?hl=en-CA&gl=CA&ceid=CA%3Aen  
 
Then you consider that from an extremely good source, ICUs are running busier than being reported:  

Also, Dr. Heather Smith says the 25 figure in ICU is inaccurate.

She says the head count conducted by physicians was 40 COVID patients in ICU today at noon.

&mdash: Bartley Kives (@bkives) December 27, 2021

 
 
There is some encouraging but still early info that Omicron, while spreading extremely easily, may be less lethal...  a topic that when it comes up Dr Roussin references how early that info is and how we cannot take any chances. I’d suggest that given our especially dire ICU situation in Manitoba even if in theory omicron hypothetically results in 1/10 the hospitalizations, if we end up with 10x the amount of cases we aren’t any further ahead.  What if after learning more about Omicron it turns out to be even worse than that. Is that really a chance we should be taking because some people whose Solution to being tired of Covid is to advocate for taking on additional risk and unknows that they haven't taken the chance to develop a proper understanding of. 
 
Absolutely the message on vaccines needs to have extremely high priority, but we need less contacts, less transmission and less potentially severe consequences on our medical system. Along all of the other measures in place, These additional restrictions will help to reduce those contacts further even if there are some that might suggest that they could have been in place sooner or they could’ve gone even further. At the end of the day all we've got is the present and to do what's in our control to limit what this could devolve further into. 

An event postponement for Wednesday…  
Holiday Stars on Ice to a date later this winter:  

"2021 Stars on Ice “Holiday” show scheduled for Wednesday, December 29th at Westoba Place will be postponed to a date later this winter. "

We urge all ticket holders to HOLD ON to their tickets at this time.

For the full release: https://t.co/1hTUtaegeI pic.twitter.com/obqr1ecKrL

— Keystone Centre (@Keystone_Centre) December 27, 2021

I think the theory is to reduce contacts in as many places as they can find that they feel is reasonable and strike best balance they can with necessities/economy/quality of life. It’s true they will reduce an amount of contacts with these latest restrictions, the open question will be is it enough. Both Quebec and Ontario (together more than half the population of Canada) have had retail to 50% since before Christmas and I’d also feel better if we were following their thinking. At the other side of the fence, BC has been very similar to us and haven’t applied extra restrictions to retail so clearly different schools of thought in decision-makers that are looking at all factors and trying to strike what they feel is best balance.  I'm not as in the loop on their hospitalization or ICU data to know if they have a similar small margin for error as us. 
 
The particular grocery store I saw on the 24th is a reason why I’m viewing the case numbers as being the worst is yet to come until proven otherwise. So many people in close proximity at the tils extending lineups into a key corridor where shoppers had no choice but to walk through. Especially now knowing where our (known)case numbers and positivity rates have grown to, law of averages says fair chance one or some had it. Law of averages says too many in the building at that busy time weren’t vaxxed. It’s why knowing where case numbers are at, at minimum I really hope folks will for at least these next few weeks take it on themselves to at least not shop with others unnecessarily, to shop at less busy times if they’re lucky enough to have that ability, to use curbside where they can and of course stay the heck home if having any symptoms. The curbside at most places has come miles since pandemic early days, there's a good share of delivery options depending on the store and some of our more popular stores now open at some pretty awesomely early hours and stay open quite late. 

88 more for Brandon today, brings active case total to 465 which is 1 out of every 118 people as Covid active.  That's meaningfully higher than the wider Province where it's 1 in 213.  Before Friday the highest active case total for this district was 202. 

88 has high chance of a single-day high, though don't have the individual daily breakdown for Brandon from Friday through Monday's update to see if yesterday's increase was skewed higher than average towards one of the three days. 

No recoveries were reported, so that stat may very well be behind. How that lines up with any additional cases in backlog I couldn't begin to speculate (was 11,500 provincially yesterday).

In light of yesterday's new public health orders by the Manitoba Government further restricting the capacity of indoor events to 50% capacity with a maximum of 250 people per event, Manitoba Ag Days & its Board of Directors has made the decision to postpone the 2022 show… (1/3) pic.twitter.com/zNElkT4pW2

— Manitoba Ag Days (@MBAgDays) December 28, 2021

… set to occur January 18th - 20th at the Keystone Centre to a date yet to be determined. The management team is currently working with the host facility and service providers to come up with alternate dates. Further information will be provided as soon as possible. (2/3)

— Manitoba Ag Days (@MBAgDays) December 28, 2021

Thank you for your patience and your support as we navigate through this situation.

- The Board of Directors and Management Team of Manitoba Ag Dayshttps://t.co/NF8YMGYSA1

— Manitoba Ag Days (@MBAgDays) December 28, 2021

Eye opener to read, I hope she’s doing alright. Really at this point I think we just need to assume it’s actively in circulation and could literally be anywhere… something I couldn’t help but think when I drove by some of the more packed parking lots in the city this PM.  
 
Fwiw, more than one MB doctor with depth understanding of the challenges we face feels that we aren’t doing enough in terms of restrictions to minimize our risk… with the guess that current approach may be more of a calculated gamble on severity and the amount of cases that might require hospitalization:  
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/manitoba-doctors-react-updated-pubic-health-restrctions-1.6299055  
 
Still in the here and now it comes down to that all we can control is the decisions we make individually that at least minimize chance of acquiring and spreading.

One event next month has made it clear that they’re intending to continue as per plans (see below). Different kind of event in terms of facility and in presumably number of people in the building and so different rules will apply. I see they intend to follow what is in place and in fairness a lot of unknowns that could happen between now and then when health orders aren’t officially in place that long as of now. Much respect generally speaking to those who put time and energy into organizing events in the community,  but in the middle of everything that’s going on right now I have to say it comes across as awfully tone deaf to flag “proof of vaccination NOT required” as a key point…  
 

 

 

 

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Westman Wedding Expo (@westmanweddingexpo)

Important to note that the Green Spot is the venue but it isn’t their event. Down to offering curbside pickup in pandemic early days and coming up with ways to limit occupancy I feel they’ve set a good example in pandemic protocol as a business.  
 
From what organizers of the event have said in the post they fully intend to follow rules and requirements from the province to operate and I believe them. It just struck me as one of the more odd things I’ve seen locally during the pandemic for event organizers to go as far as making a front-and-centre point that proof of vaccination won't be required. Falls into the category in my opinion being quite unfortunately -timed as we deal with this massive rise in cases and public health officials advising vaccines and boosters as a primary way to counteract.

update: I see that the post mentioned above has since been removed 

78 more Brandon cases yesterday and 57 today.  
 
Sorry to see that the Westman Wedding Expo is having to cancel after all as per the embed below. Really looking forward to the time when the public health environment is more conducive to safely holding the events we know and love that organizers and vendors out so much blood, sweat and tears into putting on…  
 
"

 

 

 

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Westman Wedding Expo (@westmanweddingexpo)

A valuable, even if difficult, read on the current state of COVID in the province and where we’re trending for January at link below. Like talked about in this thread, note the reference to case numbers being more of an approximation at this point and the likelihood of getting much more serious at the health care system level:  
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/manitoba-covid-omicron-measures-analysis-1.6301141  
 
After reading, its especially hard to understand how we haven’t at least come to the same conclusions as Quebec in more seriously trying to limit contacts with policy and at least try to slow the rate of spread.  
 
Wishing everyone a safe New Years Eve. Please don’t gather in any kind of numbers. While supporting locally-based stores that need it as much as possible, please run in-person shopping decisions right now through the lens of knowing how actively the virus is spreading in the community and how much more willingly it spreads in crowds.  
 

Single-day increase in Brandon active cases today of 167, bringing us to 760 active cases listed (and highly likely underreported). For perspective, that number was 210 in the data one week ago and was a record at that time.  
 
Separate Brandon-related news, our own Reg Helwer has made the news with the (frankly unbelievable) comment referenced below in his role of minister responsible for EMO. I know of someone that has since made touch with Minister Helwer's office in Brandon and is picking up a box of masks this afternoon after calling ahead.  

Current state of public health policy in Manitoba.

Story: https://t.co/tYiELYASAm pic.twitter.com/IySHFBHw2n

— Wendy Sawatzky (@wendysawatzky) December 31, 2021

It does look like there is now a wider effort to distribute masks locally later this weekend as per:

Looking for KN95 Masks? Please stop by the Green Acres Community Centre this Sunday (January 2) between 2:00 - 5:00pm. Limit of one box per family until supplies last. Please wear a mask and practice social distancing when attending. #brandoneast pic.twitter.com/sUtLSTMelh

— Len Isleifson (@LenIsleifson) December 31, 2021