Northern Manitoba has 155 active COVID cases as of Nov. 2 after 28 new cases were announced Monday.
The Pas/Opaskwayak Cree Nation/Kelsey health district continues to see the number of active cases rise dramatically, with a total of 85 cases on Monday, 70 of them active. A similarly steep increase is occurring in the Cross Lake/Pimicikamak Cree Nation health district, which now has 34 COVID-19 cases, 32 of them still active. Those two districts saw 32 and 18 new cases, respectively, since Friday, while the number of cases from unknown districts went from 10 to 26 over the same period. There were 20 active cases from unknown districts reported for the northern region Nov. 2.
The rapidly increasing number of cases in the Cross Lake district prompted Pimicikamak Cree Nation to institute a lockdown and the province to move the health district to the red/critical level on the provincial Pandemic Response System Oct. 27.
Manitoba chief public health officer Dr. Brent Roussin said tighter public health orders are a possibility for a health district such as The Pas that is experiencing a high rate of transmission.
“In any region, in any area, if we feel that further public health restrictions are required then we will act on that,” Roussin said. “We’ll continue to watch that. We have a number of our public health approaches ongoing in that area with case identification, contact tracing, isolation.”
The Thompson/Mystery Lake health district also saw the number of cases go up over the weekend, with six new positive tests to bring the total since the pandemic began to 46, 15 of them considered active.
Thompson Mayor Colleen Smook said Oct. 30 that residents of the Thompson YWCA who tested positive for COVID-19, prompting the province to declare an outbreak at the facility, would finish their required isolation periods on Oct. 31 and that there would be no more active cases there as of that date.
The Shamattawa/York Factory/Tataskweyak/Split Lake health district saw two new positive tests over the weekend and the Island Lake district one, while the Grand Rapids, Mosakahikwen/Moose Lake/Easterville/Chemawawin health district had its first positive test for the virus reported Monday.
There have been 230 COVID-19 cases in Manitoba’s north since the pandeic began and there were eight residents of the region in hospital Nov. 2, one of them in intensive care.
The province’s chief nursing officer Lanette Siragusa said hospital spaces in Winnipeg are also utilized for northern residents who don’t require intensive care in order to prevent putting too much of a burden on hospitals in The Pas and Thompson, which are the only ones in the north where COVID patients can be treated.
“There have been before, and there will be again, times where we need to transfer patients down to Winnipeg for more intensive, more highly cute care and services,” she said.”For some patients who may be at risk with chronic disease or because of their age, we actually will bring them down to Winnipeg just so they’re closer to a hospital and don’t have to fly in a crisis situation.”
Winnipeg was moved to the critical level and every other region to the orange/restricted level effective Nov. 2, while the northern region has been at the orange level since Oct. 26, which Roussin said will continue beyond its initial two-week period.
“I think that seeing the ongoing transmission in the north, seeing the trajectory in the province as a whole, we’ll be required to extend that order,” he said
Manitoba Hydro began testing all workers at its Keeyask generating station construction site near Split Lake and Gillam after a worker there tested positive. The Crown corporation said in press release over the weekend that it would be temporarily scaling back operations at the camp, where there are about 760 workers.
“We’re taking this proactive precautionary measure to stop the spread of the virus,” said Manitoba Hydro CEO JayGrewal in a news release. “We’ll continue to work with our partner communities to support their individual pandemic response plans.”
Sixteen workers tested had positive and 15 others received unclear results from rapid tests, which indicates that they may also have the virus, as of Nov. 2. Testing of all employees at the site has now been completed, Hydro says.
