Province’s half measures won’t stop COVID surge
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Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 29/10/2020 (1521 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
There is a lot we still don’t know about COVID-19, but one of the fundamental truths that has been revealed seven months into the pandemic is that half measures are, in the final analysis, a bad way to control this virus. Which makes you wonder why, as Winnipeg faces its most critical COVID-19 challenge to date, we’re still using half measures.
Beginning Monday, all restaurants and bars will have to close, although they will be able to continue pickup and delivery. Museums and libraries, casinos, recreation facilities and movie theatres are closed, while private gyms will have fewer people and everyone will have to wear a mask when exercising.
These new measures will not be welcomed. However, it’s important to note we’re still a long way off of the stringent restrictions put in place this past spring.
Personal services (nails and hair salons) remain open at half capacity. Remarkably, faith-based gatherings will still allow up to 100 people. And although people are strongly urged to stop socializing outside their homes, it is still possible to hold gatherings of up to five people.
Dr. Brent Roussin, Manitoba’s chief medical officer of health, acknowledged he was deliberately avoiding more restrictive measures in the hope that we all start working together to control the current outbreak. However, if the experience in other countries is any indication, his reluctance to adopt what has become known in epidemiological circles as the “short, sharp lockdown” — similar in scope to what we saw in the spring, but for a briefer duration — will ensure the current outbreak continues unimpeded.
Shut down now, doctors tell premier, health minister
Posted:
A group of 18 doctors is demanding the Tory government impose an immediate provincewide shutdown to avoid a catastrophe that will result in an “appalling and pointless loss of life.”
That was largely the concern expressed this week by 11 Winnipeg doctors, who authored an open letter demanding the province implement a complete lockdown to stop the virus’s surge. Although there is some debate about how long a short, sharp lockdown should be, many countries have described it as at least 21 days (median incubation period) but likely longer to allow for those currently infected to clear the virus.
The doctors who penned the letter are only reflecting the growing scientific evidence that shorter, more stringent, localized lockdowns are preferable to broader, longer and less severe restrictions. Last month, researchers at the universities of Guelph and Waterloo used epidemiological modelling to conclude that a “county-by-county approach (to lockdowns) causes fewer days of closure and impacts fewer people than a strategy that opens or closes the entire province together.”
Which brings us all the way back to Friday’s code red designation for Winnipeg and its accompanying restrictions.
It is pretty clear from all empirical measurements that we are facing a much worse situation now than we were in March and April, when Premier Brian Pallister made the hard but correct decision to close down the province.
And for the most part, we were rewarded for our suffering. Up until August, we were the envy of Canadian provinces with among the lowest per capita infections and deaths. Over the past two months, however, we’ve seen overwhelming evidence that Manitobans have lost their appetite for basic pandemic-control measures.
All along we’ve been told that if we wash our hands and stay home when we’re sick, keep our distance from strangers, limit social gatherings and — more recently — wear a mask in public spaces, we’d be able to keep the virus in check and enjoy most of what we did before the pandemic struck.
The awful truth is that weeks of admonitions and pleadings from Roussin, Pallister and Health Minister Cameron Friesen have failed to convince us to do the right thing.
The awful truth is that weeks of admonitions and pleadings from Roussin, Pallister and Health Minister Cameron Friesen have failed to convince us to do the right thing.
That makes Roussin’s comments on Friday somewhat concerning. He continues to express some sort of blind faith that citizens will do the right thing, even when he’s confronted with overwhelming evidence to the contrary. That faith, which is no doubt just a reflection of the faith held by Pallister and the senior levels of his government, is simply unjustified.
Although incremental half measures did work earlier this year to control a surge in Brandon and surrounding areas, it’s not working in Winnipeg. And while the measures Roussin announced Friday will hurt many Winnipeggers, particularly those in the hospitality industry, their suffering will be in vain. None of these additional restrictions is likely to change the behaviour of those Manitobans who have decided to throw COVID-19 caution to the wind.
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Complicating matters has been the Pallister government’s failure to provide adequate testing, laboratory and contract tracing resources. The intolerable delays in getting tested and getting results, along with delays in tracing all those who may have come into contact with a known case, have no doubt contributed to the lack of compliance.
For those who are lamenting the restrictions announced Friday, consider this worst-case scenario.
After limping along for a month or more with a bunch of half measures that have done little to control the spread of the coronavirus, we may still have to endure a total lockdown later this fall that will cut deeper into our social and economic activities, and last longer.
As was the case in March, it’s time for someone to step up and make a hard decision. Half measures will end up leaving this city, which contains most of the province’s residents, languishing in lockdown limbo for many months to come.
dan.lett@freepress.mb.ca
Dan Lett
Columnist
Born and raised in and around Toronto, Dan Lett came to Winnipeg in 1986, less than a year out of journalism school with a lifelong dream to be a newspaper reporter.
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