Manitoba (Canada) faces a double burden with a new variant and very little ICU capacity.
After a dreadful 2020 holiday season, marred by deadly COVID outbreaks in residential care facilities, the last thing anyone in Manitoba wanted was another gloomy December, a report said.
However, this is what the province is seeing, but with fewer fatalities and more uncertainties.
Over the past few weeks, a series of negative indicators of the pandemic have forced Premier Heather Stefanson and her cabinet to pass the first set of broad-spectrum pandemic restrictions in six months.
The most crucial measure is the increase in COVID-19 cases, probably due to the ongoing spread of the delta variant but likely due to the emergence of the omicron.
On December 13, Manitoba reported an average of 164 daily COVID cases. On Monday, the average increased to the rate of 234 per day. That’s an increase of 43 percent in just one week.
In itself, one week of extensive increase wouldn’t be cause for alarm. However, the likelihood of continued rapid expansion as the more virulent omicron strain takes over the delta variant suggests that Manitoba should not expect merely one week of rapidly increasing cases.
Even so, the increasing number of cases wouldn’t be a significant issue if Manitoba hospitals were equipped to handle COVID severe cases the way they did in the third and second waves of this pandemic.
But that’s not the case. In the worst part, during the second wave, doctors and nurses in Manitoba’s intensive care wards managed to treat 129 patients. At the lowest point during the third wave, they were able to treat 131.
Manitoba ICUs have struggled to manage between 87-104 patients in the past couple of weeks. The health system doesn’t have the capacity for critical care that it cobbled together months ago.
The reasons behind this are a lot and documented. After more than 21 months of the outbreak, certain nurses have either left or given up.
Their replacements are keen, but they don’t have the same expertise and knowledge at the very least, not at this point. They’ll also have to devote more time caring for specific patients because they are young and can spend longer hours in ICUs without falling victim to COVID.
If you consider the beginning of the pandemic, this was the absolute worst-case scenario: a healthcare system so devastated by the virus that it could not offer primary healthcare to the people who needed them.
This is the situation Manitoba faces and has been facing for a few weeks now.
But only on Friday did the public health chief of the province officer announce new restrictions that he hopes will reduce the increase of COVID cases, which could lead to more patients in ICUs further down the line.
“We’re not going to stop omicron,” Dr. Brent Roussin said during a late-afternoon news briefing.
“Omicron’s going to be here, and it’s going to climb rapidly, but if we can significantly reduce the amount of contacts we have outside of our household, we can buy more time to get many more Manitobans vaccinated.”
Public health is currently trying to have as many Manitobans triple-vaxxed as quickly as possible to lessen the risk of additional ICU cases, supported by evidence that suggests booster shots can prevent most cases of severe illnesses due to COVID infection.
However, the regulations that came into effect today appear to be mild compared to the lockdowns that occurred in the third and second waves. It is still permissible for people to be in other people’s homes, regardless of whether they’re vaccine-free or not.
Roussin said Manitobans are likely to ignore more stringent restrictions.
“We have the holiday season approaching,” he said. “Do we feel if we tell people they’re not able to gather with anyone, whether that’s a realistic expectation?”
He could be, in fact, right. However, the reason is that the Stefanson government was unable to take action earlier in the season when daily COVID cases were still hovering near 150.
If the objective of public health measures is to safeguard the healthcare system, it would have been logical around mid-November as COVID hospitalizations began increasing and ICUs started to get stretched.
However, this didn’t take place. Only two weeks ago, the health minister had insisted that the province could expand ICU capacity even though Shared Health conceded it could not reach the ICU targets it set in mid-November.
Instead, the province introduced new regulations that went into effect just four days before Christmas, astonishing an industry of hospitality that had expected Manitoba to enjoy the festive season.
“Have a decision made, and not just fly by the seat of your pants,” said Cam Loeppky, co-owner of Good Will Social Club, a Winnipeg live music venue that just canceled six sold-out holiday-season events and laid off 14 workers.
“Like, it’s happening all over the world. It’s not new to Manitoba. All of a sudden, Manitobans realize that the omicron is coming?”
If you think back to the second wave that occurred in the autumn of 2020, Manitoba didn’t adopt new health reforms in the public sector in time to stop the number of cases from becoming too high and eventually leading to the deaths of many seniors.
In the fourth wave, something unexpected occurred. ICUs wound up on the brink before the new restrictions were put in place.
As delta crippled the ICUs, this is where Manitoba is headed, with the full force of omicron yet to arrive.
Manitoba (Canada) faces a double burden with a new variant here and very little ICU capacity.
After a dreadful 2020 holiday season, which was marred by deadly COVID outbreaks in residential care facilities, one thing anyone in Manitoba wanted was another gloomy December.
However, this is what we’re seeing, but with fewer fatalities and more uncertainties.
Over the past few weeks, a series of negative indicators of the pandemic have forced Premier Heather Stefanson and her cabinet to pass the first set of broad-spectrum pandemic restrictions in six months.
The most crucial measure is the increase in COVID-19 cases, probably due to the ongoing spread of the delta variant but likely due to the emergence of the omicron.
Last December 13, Manitoba reported an average of 164 daily COVID cases. Last Monday, the average increased to the rate of 234 per day. That’s an increase of 43 percent in just one week.
In itself, one week of extensive increase wouldn’t be cause for alarm. However, the likelihood of continued rapid expansion as the more virulent omicron strain takes over the delta variant suggests that Manitoba should not expect merely one week of rapidly increasing cases.
Even so, the increasing number of cases wouldn’t be a significant issue if Manitoba hospitals were equipped to handle COVID severe cases the way they did in the third and second waves of this pandemic.
But that’s not the case. In the worst part, during the second wave, doctors and nurses in Manitoba, intensive care wards managed to treat 129 patients. At the lowest point during the third wave, they were able to treat the patients of 131.
Manitoba ICUs have struggled to manage between 87- 104 patients in the past couple of weeks. The health system doesn’t have the capacity for critical care that it cobbled together months ago.
The reasons behind this are many and documented. After more than 21 months of the outbreak, certain nurses have either left or given up.
Their replacements are keen, but they don’t have the same expertise and knowledge at the very least, not at this point. They’ll also have to devote more time caring for specific patients because they are young and can spend longer in ICUs without falling victim to COVID.
If you consider the beginning of the pandemic, this was the absolute worst-case scenario: a healthcare system so devastated by the virus that it could not offer primary healthcare to the people who needed them.
This is the situation Manitoba faces and has been facing for a few weeks now.
But only on Friday did the public health chief of the province officer announce new restrictions that he hopes will reduce the increase of COVID cases, which could lead to more patients in ICUs further down the line.
“We’re not going to stop omicron,” Dr. Brent Roussin said during a late-afternoon news briefing.
“Omicron’s going to be here, and it’s going to climb rapidly, but if we can significantly reduce the amount of contacts we have outside of our household, we can buy more time to get many more Manitobans vaccinated.”
Public health is currently trying to have as many Manitobans triple-vaxxed as quickly as is possible to lessen the risk of additional ICU cases, supported by evidence that suggests booster shots can prevent the majority of cases of severe illnesses due to COVID infection.
However, the regulations that came into effect today appear to be mild compared to the lockdowns that occurred in the third and second waves. It is still permissible for people to be in other people’s homes, regardless of whether they’re vaccine-free or not.
Roussin said Manitobans are likely to ignore more stringent restrictions.
“We have the holiday season approaching,” he said. “Do we feel if we tell people they’re not able to gather with anyone, whether that’s a realistic expectation?”
He could be, in fact, right. However, the reason is that the Stefanson government was unable to take action earlier in the season when daily COVID cases were still hovering near 150.
If the objective of public health measures is to safeguard the healthcare system, it would have been logical around mid-November as COVID hospitalizations began increasing and ICUs started to get stretched.
However, this didn’t take place. Only two weeks ago, the health minister had insisted that the province could expand ICU capacity even though Shared Health conceded it could not reach the ICU targets it set in mid-November.
Instead, the province introduced new regulations that went into effect just four days before Christmas, astonishing an industry of hospitality that had expected Manitoba to enjoy the festive season.
“Have a decision made, and not just fly by the seat of your pants,” said Cam Loeppky, co-owner of Good Will Social Club, a Winnipeg live music venue that just canceled six sold-out holiday-season events and laid off 14 workers.
“Like, it’s happening all over the world. It’s not new to Manitoba. All of a sudden, Manitobans realize that the omicron is coming?”
If you think back at the second wave that occurred in the autumn of 2020, Manitoba didn’t adopt new health reforms in the public sector in time to stop the number of cases from becoming too high and eventually leading to the deaths of many seniors.
If you think back to the third wave that hit this spring, Manitoba did not adopt any new health reforms in the public sector in time enough to stop ICUs from becoming overwhelmed to the point that many patients needed to be removed from the province.
In the fourth wave, something unexpected occurred. ICUs wound up on the brink before the new restrictions were put in place.
As delta crippled the ICUs, this is where Manitoba is headed, with the full force of omicron yet to arrive.