Atwal paints dire picture of fourth wave

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This article was published 25/08/2021 (1626 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The modelling projection of a fourth wave in the province is grim.

If more people don’t get vaccinated, and if no measures are put in place, intensive care units in the province could become overwhelmed in weeks, it suggested.

In the latest pandemic modelling on Tuesday, Dr. Jazz Atwal, the province’s deputy chief public health officer, released the modelling that reinforced the province’s latest decision to make it mandatory for specific areas of the workforce to be vaccinated while making mask wearing compulsory in indoor public places, among other restrictions, as a way to stem the spread of the fourth wave.

In an online news conference, Atwal said the model shows that COVID-19 could overwhelm the acute-care system within two months after a fourth wave begins under the extreme scenario.

The modelling projected that 80 intensive care unit beds could be needed for COVID-19 patients just one month after the fourth wave begins in the province. There are 72 critical care beds in the province under normal conditions.

Despite having slightly more than 75 per cent of Manitobans with two doses of the vaccine and more than 80 per cent with one dose, Atwal said roughly one-third of Manitobans aren’t vaccinated, either because they’re unwilling or not eligible to get the shot, he said.

That won’t be enough to protect the health-care system from being overwhelmed as the extremely contagious Delta variant spreads without taking other precautions.

“We aren’t seeing people who are doubly vaxxed in hospital or in an ICU bed, “ Atwal said. “What we’re seeing is unvaccinated individuals coming into hospital. The best bet to prevent … overwhelming our acute-care system is to get vaccinated and to practise

the fundamentals.” 

Premier Brian Pallister’s warning at Tuesday’s press conference to announce more stringent public health guidelines, which included mandatory mask wearing indoors in public places and vaccines for specific workers, was dire.

“The projections are what are really hitting me,” he said Tuesday. “B.C. is predicting up to 10,000 cases per day within weeks. Ontario, 7,000 by mid October. It’s their projection. Just to put it into perspective.”

The government has been criticized for not acting sooner on modelling projections for the Delta variant.

“For more than a month, public health officials have been promising to publicly release the province’s own Delta transmission projections. Last week, a provincial spokesperson told the Free Press the modelling was still being reviewed, after being initially completed in late July,” according to a Winnipeg Free Press story on Aug. 9

In that same story, Atwal was quoted as saying: “The model for the Delta variant has not been finished yet.”

Seventeen days later, the province is ratcheting back on its loosened restrictions just over two weeks before those orders were scheduled for review with the premier raising the alarm about the impending fourth wave.

The NDP critic for health care, Uzoma Asagwara, openly criticized Pallister’s government for its tardiness.

“At the peak of the third wave, Pallister’s health minister, Heather Stefanson, told Manitobans our ICUs had additional capacity — and the next day we transferred critically ill patients to Ontario,” Asagwara said.

“No one wants to see that happen again. But the modelling that’s been finally released today, after being hidden for months by the PCs, proves that what health-care workers have been warning us about is real. The PCs failed to staff up and prepare our hospitals for the fourth wave, and if they don’t take action today, we could be back in the same situation.”

» kkielley@brandonsun.com