Officials waited as Manitoba raced toward COVID-19 worst-case scenario Expert says it'll be two months before situation improves By: Katie May Posted: 2:06 PM CDT Friday, May. 14, 2021 Last Modified: 9:51 PM CDT Friday, May. 14, 2021 Updates

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The Manitoba government knew COVID-19 cases and hospitalization rates were on track for the worst-case scenario — but officials waited to impose tougher restrictions until the number of infected and hospitalized Manitobans had significantly surpassed the most extreme projections.

Modelling data released Friday show Manitoba’s infection rate and hospital admissions exceed the worst-case trajectory. It’s the same data the government relied on when it announced May 7 it would further restrict gathering sizes, and close restaurants, gyms, libraries and other businesses. On May 12, schools in Winnipeg and Brandon were closed, too.

It was too late to stop the rise of the third wave. By the time the province tweaked public-health orders April 20 and toughened them significantly May 9, daily case counts and hospitalizations were already well above the model’s worst-case scenario. But because the province has rarely released its epidemic modelling data, it’s unclear how long officials knew Manitoba’s outlook was this dire.

The models released Friday were completed in late April, and before that, the province was relying on a model that showed a much slower pace for growing infection rates and intensive-care hospitalizations, a provincial spokesperson said. They had two different models — one extreme and one conservative — and were relying on the slow-growth projections, the spokesperson said.

In the best-case scenario, Manitobans can expect another two to four weeks of rising hospitalizations, and at least another week of increasing daily case counts before numbers start to drop, deputy chief provincial public health officer Dr. Jazz Atwal said when he released the models.

Atwal said the province plans to release its projections regularly. He agreed releasing such troubling data earlier might have convinced more Manitobans to follow stricter public-health orders.

“Perhaps for some, maybe if they saw a model earlier, it would change that behaviour. Obviously we spoke to it, we stressed the importance of it, we had acute-care colleagues (showing) how busy the hospitals are,” Atwal said. 

“It is challenging to say. You know, maybe it would have helped in some situations. In other situations, it probably wouldn’t have made a difference either,” he added, saying some people will break the rules no matter what.

The projections take into account vaccination rates, but they don’t include the potential effect of the new restrictions that took effect May 9. The projections likely underestimate the impact of the highly transmissible variants, Atwal said, adding it’s possible Manitoba’s test-positivity rates will rise above 15 per cent in the coming weeks.

“A high uptake of vaccine is what’s going to allow Manitobans to get back to summer the way they remember summer being,” Atwal said.

The fact Manitoba’s case counts and hospitalization rates have been tracking near the worst-case extremes for months, makes it even more surprising that severe restrictions haven’t been put in place, said Winnipeg medical microbiologist Dr. Phillippe Lagacé-Wiens.

He and many of his colleagues have been calling for swifter action since the Tory government began slowly reopening in late January. He said he believes all non-essential businesses need to close immediately.

It will be nearly two months before Manitobans see an improvement, he predicted, but not before we hit higher peaks for ICU admissions and infection rates than we had in the second wave.

“Had we implemented stricter interventions considerably earlier, when we first started to see those slight increases in cases, we probably wouldn’t have been in it as long,” he said.

NDP Leader Wab Kinew said he didn’t understand why it took so long for the government to release its modelling data.

“Manitobans may have been able to turn this thing around more quickly,” Kinew said. “Manitobans are mature. They can handle the truth and, when we give that information to people, it helps all of us.”

Repeatedly, public-health officials have said household gatherings are responsible for most of the virus’s spread, but community transmission is a significant risk in the province. In 45 per cent of all cases, there is no information on how COVID-19 was transmitted, according to provincial data from April 25 to May 1. Unknown (community transmission) was present in 23 per cent of cases, and contact tracing was still pending in 21 per cent of cases.

Atwal said some Manitobans who get infected aren’t being honest with contact tracers about how they contracted it, while others admit they’ve broken the rules.

“We have lots of evidence of that,” he said.

The pace of the vaccine rollout is speeding up, and second-dose appointments are expected to start being booked before May 22. On Wednesday, all adults in Manitoba became eligible for COVID-19 vaccines, and as of Friday, youth 12 to 18 became eligible.

On Friday, Manitoba reported 491 new infections. Of those, 328 were in Winnipeg, where the test-positivity rate was 14.2 per cent.

As of Friday morning, 239 COVID-19 patients were in hospital, including 67 in intensive care.

— with files from Danielle Da Silva and Carol Sanders

katie.may@freepress.mb.ca

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Katie May
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Katie May is a general-assignment reporter for the Free Press.

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