Schools may stay closed longer

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This article was published 27/03/2020 (2162 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Manitoba has not yet moved to extend the closure of schools beyond early April, but that could change, the province’s chief public health officer hinted on Thursday.

“We’re looking at that,” Dr. Brent Roussin said during the daily live-streamed news conference.

Government officials have said schools will reopen after spring break ends.

Alberta and Saskatchewan, among others, have cancelled classes indefinitely as the pandemic rages worldwide.

“Other jurisdictions have different dynamics right now, so we are constantly looking at how we’re going to approach this,” Roussin said.

“This is something that we need to expect to be in the long run,” he added. 

“This is not going to be a sprint, so in a couple of weeks this is not going to be over.”

The province hasn’t even seen sustained community transmission of the virus yet, Roussin said.

“It’s difficult to comprehend a scenario where we would be … lifting our social-distancing strategies anytime in the next few weeks.”

Roussin pointed out Manitoba has been ahead of many other jurisdictions when it comes to measures to control the spread of the virus.

“There’s a lot of aspects to this that we are working on, so that’s one of them. And so we are looking at getting a better picture on when we can make announcements, what we are going to decide. These are all evolving scenarios.”

As of Wednesday, more than 5,600 tests have been performed at Cadham Provincial Laboratory.

Roussin said the Cadham lab performed 734 tests on Wednesday, more than doubling the previous day’s total of 352.

“Certainly, our testing strategy has a balance with our current capacity,” Roussin said.

He said the provincial lab has put measures in place to work around some of the worldwide shortages of reagent.

“That’s why we see the increase in the amount of tests that they’ve been able to perform as of yesterday (Wednesday), and they’ll continue to work on those efforts to increase our lab capacity, and as that increases we’re going to further amend our testing protocols.”

Roussin said the testing criteria is being expanded to include those at risk of contracting or spreading the virus and are showing respiratory symptoms, including health-care providers and those who live or work in remote or isolated communities, including First Nations, and those who live or work in group settings such as correctional facilities, shelters and long-term care facilities.

Shared Health’s chief nursing officer, Lanette Siragusa, said changes have been made to get results back more quickly to those who test negative for COVID-19.

Starting today, a team from Dynacare, a medical laboratory services company, will get the list of negative results from Cadham lab and will take over calling patients, she said.

That includes tests that were done on Thursday as well as any backlog that exists.

Some patients have complained about waiting a week or more for their results to come back. Those who test positive for the virus are notified as soon as they come in, normally within a day or two of testing. 

“Those of you who have been patiently waiting, thank you, and we will serve you better starting now going forward,” Siragusa said.

YTwo more community testing sites are opening today — one in Portage la Prairie and another in Eriksdale. Another drive-thru site in Pine Falls will open Monday.

Meanwhile, Dauphin’s MPI service centre has been closed to make room for a drive-thru COVID-19 testing site that will be opening Saturday.

The service centre closed at the end of Thursday.

All remaining appointments scheduled at the Dauphin location will be cancelled and customers will be contacted directly and advised of alternative options, said MPI media relations co-ordinator Brian Smiley.

In an email to the Sun, Smiley said staff were notified Wednesday of the closure and will be assigned to work from home. He noted more than 1,000 MPI staff are working from home during the pandemic.

Manitoba reported one new probable case of COVID-19 on Thursday: a Winnipeg man in his 20s who appears to be connected to a previous positive case. 

» brobertson@brandonsun.com