PMH records first COVID-19 death

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This article was published 16/04/2020 (2210 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The tragedy of COVID-19 has hit closer to home, with Prairie Mountain Health seeing its first related death, public health officials announced Wednesday.

The woman, who was in her 60s and had underlying medical conditions, was in hospital but not in intensive care at the time, Dr. Brent Roussin, Manitoba’s chief public health officer, said during the daily news conference.

Her death is Manitoba’s fifth during the coronavirus pandemic.

Mayor Rick Chrest offered his “sincere sympathies” for the family and friends of the woman during Wednesday’s COVID-19 City of Brandon livestream update. 

Her death, he added, is “a sobering indication of the impact of this terrible disease.”

This is the first time a person who died of COVID-19 in Manitoba had not been in intensive care prior to their death.

The first case, which was reported March 27, involved a woman who was also in her 60s. 

The others included a man in his 50s and a man in his 60s — both of whom had underlying medical conditions — and a man in his 70s who had previously been living in a personal care home.

All four were from Winnipeg.

Roussin said Wednesday he did not have information on whether the woman in Prairie Mountain Health had contracted the virus through travel, community transmission or had a connection with a known case of COVID-19.

Nine other people are currently hospitalized in Manitoba with COVID-19, of whom four are in intensive care.

Roussin said he is not aware of any other COVID-19-related admissions in Prairie Mountain Health.

Two new cases of COVID-19 were also identified as of Wednesday morning, while two cases that had been considered probable positives have been ruled as negative, leaving the total number of lab-confirmed positive and probable positive cases in Manitoba unchanged at 246.

Manitoba now has 132 active cases, while 108 people have recovered from COVID-19.

Prairie Mountain Health has seen 12 cases of COVID-19: 11 confirmed cases and one probable positive case.

“We’re keeping in (line) with the hospitalization rate and the ICU rate, and our mortality rate (about two per cent of the positive cases) is keeping in line with that of Canada,” Roussin said.

More than 1,000 people in Canada have now died from COVID-19 since the pandemic began, according to a CBC News tally on Wednesday.

There are 27,540 confirmed cases.

Meanwhile, supplies of personal protective equipment are being shipped out daily to rural health centres, Shared Health chief nursing officer Lanette Siragusa reported Wednesday.

“They let us know when there’s challenges with shipments coming in,” she said in response to a question about rural doctors perhaps being unwilling to see patients for fear of not having sufficient PPE available.

“But they also reassure us that the supplies are being delivered,” she said, adding there is, or soon will be, an online portal for health facilities to request additional supplies.

“When we talk about conservation (of supplies) … it’s a mix of keeping people safe and working in a different way,” Siragusa said, adding doctors are able to conduct virtual visits with their patients, while those who have to see patients in person should have access to protective equipment.

The supply chain for personal protective equipment such as gloves, gowns and masks is “precarious,” Siragusa said. 

Shared Health is looking at distributing them in short bursts to where they are needed, she added.

“So we have a long-term strategy, but also re-evaluating frequently, making sure that distribution goes out instead of maybe, big bulk deliveries (to) shorter amounts so that they can ebb-and-flow with the challenges that we’re facing.”

Siragusa noted 21 health-care workers in Manitoba have tested positive for COVID-19, primarily in the Winnipeg region. There are none in Prairie Mountain Health.

» brobertson@brandonsun.com, with files from Drew May