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Maple Leaf Foods says 23 employees at their meat processing plant in Brandon have tested positive for COVID-19, but are playing down any danger.
The meat processing plant continues to remain open as both the company and provincial health officials maintain there is no evidence of the virus spreading within the plant — but the situation has some livestock producers watching closely.
General manager of the Manitoba Pork Council, Andrew Dickson, says some producers are worried about a potential shutdown at the plant— which is what the union representing the plant workers have been calling for.
The Manitoba Pork Council GM says there are around 2,000 people who work in that plant, and with the uptick in COVID cases in Brandon, producers are “very concerned that the community can get on top of this disease, so the workforce can continue to show up and process the pigs as they show up to the plant.”
Dickson says there are some built-in measures for pork producers to fall back on in the event of a disruption at the plant, but explains “after 3 or 4 days, we would be in serious trouble on the farm with too many pigs on our hands.”
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- Contributed by Matt Hamel
Health, Seniors and Active Living Minister Cameron Friesen has announced that the provincial government is doubling its order of the high-dose influenza vaccine.
This is to address the anticipated demand and expand the criteria for who can receive it free of charge.
In a press release, Minister Friesen says COVID-19 will make the flu season even more difficult to deal with.
“That’s why our government is taking every precaution to help keep Manitobans safe. By doubling our order of high-dose influenza vaccine and making it available to more people at high risk of contracting the flu, we are able to protect them, as well as our health-care providers on the front line.”
The high-dose influenza vaccine is an immunization created for those aged 65 years and older.
Manitoba was the first province to offer to that age group and those living in long-term care facilities, clients in interim or transitional care beds, respite care clients or unimmunized residents admitted to long-term care homes during the flu season.
This year, the Manitoba government is expanding criteria for the vaccine to allow more seniors to get the high-dose influenza vaccine starting this fall including:
- Residents of supportive and assisted living housing;
- Those who are newly incarcerated or transferred from other federal or out-of-province correctional facilities;
- Those receiving home care services while on a waiting list for admission into a long-term care facility;
- Those living on a First Nation or remote communities; and
- Those living north of the 53rd parallel of latitude.
Manitoba was the first province to offer a high-dose version of the flu vaccine in 2017 and since then, other provinces have followed suit.
The province ordered 11,500 high-dose vaccines last year and this year will be ordering up to 21,500 high-dose vaccines.
In 2019-20, over 26.3 per cent of all Manitobans received the flu vaccine, the highest ever, and Friesen expects demand to increase this year.
Pharmacies, physicians and other providers can start placing their influenza vaccine orders next Monday, August 17th, with the vaccine expected to start arriving in late September.
Dr Brent Roussin also commented on the flu season.
“Manitobans need to plan for a challenging flu season as COVID-19, influenza and colds will be occurring at the same time this fall. Getting the flu vaccine or the high-dose influenza vaccine is an important step that will help keep you and those around you healthy this season. Staying home when you are sick, practising good hand hygiene and covering your cough also helps reduce the risk of spreading the virus to others.”
Visit Manitoba’s seasonal influenza website at www.manitoba.ca/flu or contact Health Links-Info Santé at 1-888-315-9257 (toll-free) for more information.
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- Contributed by Isaac Wihak
Two more arrests have been made in connection to a homicide investigation in Portage la Prairie.
On June 24th, the remains of Gerhard Reimer-Weibe were found on Baker Street in Portage.
26-year-old Bobbi Hall and 24-year-old Chelsea O’Hanley, both from Winnipeg have been charged with first-degree murder, Forcible Confinement, and Indignity to a Dead Human Body.
Back in July, 29-year-old Kyle Evan Sinkovits and 25-year-old Jonathan Bradley Narvey, both from Winnipeg were arrested and are facing the same charges.
It’s believed Gerhard was killed in Winnipeg and was later taken to Portage by the four individuals that are facing charges.
The investigation is ongoing.
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- Contributed by Tess Kovach
Cary Fillion tells CKDM that provincial health officials have declared Cary Fillion’s Twin Motors a safe environment to continue doing business, after one staff member tested positive for COVID-19.
The employee can’t be identified due to privacy concerns, but Fillion says he wants to share as much information as possible so the public is aware and can feel safe and confident in the community.
Staff at the dealership were informed about the individual's positive COVID test result on Sunday, August 8 — at which point Public Health investigated to confirm the individual was not in “direct contact” with any other staff members during their infectious period.
Fillion says public health determined the employee had their infectious period on Sunday, August 2, and Monday, August 3.
“Luckily for our clients and for our staff, Monday August 3rd was the holiday,” says Fillion.
He says the dealership has taken some extra measures in the showroom out of an abundance of caution, and adds that public health have confirmed the dealership is safe to be open, and added “more importantly, our staff was safe and clients coming into the store are obviously safe as well.”
Although public health said it wasn’t necessary, Fillion says several staff members have elected to get tested for the virus.
Cary Fillion says he also intends to get tested as a precaution, and says none of the other staff members have symptoms or had any contact with the individual during the infectious period.
“First and foremost we wanted to be transparent and upfront about what happened and what we want to do going forward —and to just make sure that everybody is safe and healthy, and that we do provide a safe and healthy workplace, and a safe and healthy place for clients to visit.”
Fillion says the staff member is at home feeling great and in good health, albeit a little bored.
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- Contributed by Matt Hamel
Prairie Mountain Health is extending the hours of operation at the Dauphin COVID-19 testing site.
They say the move is in response to higher volumes at the testing site.
The new hours of operation will be from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., Monday to Friday. The site closes for lunch between 12:00 p.m. and 12:45 p.m.
The new schedule takes effect Tuesday, August 11.
The COVID testing site in Dauphin is located at the Community Health Services Building at 625 3rd Street, SW.
PMH advises those who arrive for testing should be prepared to wait, and ask that clients remain in the vehicles and do not enter the Community Health Services Building.
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- Contributed by Matt Hamel
Public health officials in Manitoba are reporting 16 new cases of COVID-19 on Monday, bringing the province up to 558 total cases.
Eleven of the new cases are in the Prairie Mountain Health region, with the other 5 coming out of the Southern Health region.
Chief public health officer Dr. Brent Roussin says there have been 64 cases associated with the Brandon cluster, with 22 cases connected to the Maple Leaf plant in Brandon.
Officials say many of today’s cases appear to be linked to known clusters in Brandon and the Southern Health region, although early investigations suggest the origin of a small number of cases is unknown at this time.
Manitoba currently has 196 active cases, with 6 people in hospital and three in intensive care.
The number of deaths due to COVID in the province remains at 8.
In today's press conference, Health Minister Cameron Friesen said specific geographic detail is on the way, to more accurately disclose the location of positive COVID-19 cases. Dr. Roussin also mentioned that region-specific restrictions could be a measure implemented in Manitoba, but he gave no timeline for when, or if, that might happen.
For more in-depth information on COVID-19 in Manitoba, visit the Manitoba Government COVID-19 dashboard.
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- Contributed by Matt Hamel
The Northwest Metis Council held their regional meeting on Saturday at the 11th Avenue Hall.
There, it was announced that they’ve purchased the hall and it’ll be called the Metis Community Centre. Francis Chartrand, vice-president of the Northwest Metis Council shares her thoughts on the purchase.
“I’m so excited, we finally have a place and a footprint in the City of Dauphin. I’m just excited now we have a place we can have our gatherings, share information, work with the Knights of Columbus, work with the Ukrainian dancers, we made a commitment that we’d always have space for them in here. But this’ll be the Metis Centre, we’re going to focus on a lot of our meetings, lot of our consultations, lot of our celebrations. I just want to invite everyone to come down here.”
The regional meeting was held this past weekend because of COVID-19, it usually gets held by June and features over 400 people, but due to the guidelines, only 50 people were allowed in. Local executives were the ones in attendance to bring forward the issues, challenges, or needs that the citizens are facing.
President of the Manitoba Metis Federation, David Chartrand goes over some of the big announcements at the meeting.
“In this particular region, we’re spending 7 million dollars this year alone. A lot of construction is taking place, we’re building our daycare centre in Dauphin, we’re also building a pharmacy, we’re expanding our regional office and that’s going to be a major investment. We’re hiring potentially up to 35 new staff, new citizens to be working in Dauphin, over and above the people that are already working here, I think we hired 12 from the jail after it was shut down, so they got permanent jobs with the federation.”
The president also noted the provincial government’s funding that went to 7 museums across southern Manitoba and left out the museum in Dauphin. He plans to sit down with the museum in Dauphin to see if there are ways to work together.
MMF will also be spending 11.8 million dollars in post-secondary education, 16 million dollars in training, to go along with other investments across the province.
Swan River will also be getting a daycare centre, MMF is also building houses in Swan River and are looking to do that in Dauphin as well.
Chartrand expects MMF to spend over half a billion dollars over the next 10 years across the province.
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- Contributed by Isaac Wihak
At the end of July, the provincial government announced the school reopening plan and gave school divisions until mid-August to release their individual plans.
Mountain View School Division superintendent, Dan Ward, says they have a draft plan in place based on meetings they’ve had with schools.
“We will be presenting the plan to the board and it will be published no later than August 17th, on our website.”
As of late last week, Ward said they hadn’t met with all of their schools, but had with the larger ones.
With COVID numbers on the rise, the question has been posed whether masks should be mandatory or not. In Alberta and Ontario, masks are mandated for grades 4 to 12 and in Nova Scotia, masks are mandatory in all common areas at schools. Manitoba’s government is still considering whether masks should be required at schools.
Ward says they recognize that staff and students may choose to wear masks and the division would support that decision, even though it’s optional at this point.
“We are following the advice of the Chief Public Health Officer, Dr Roussin, and in the recent publication of restoring safe schools, that was released on July 30th, the province is not making the wearing of non-medical masks mandatory. However, if that should change, we would certainly be communicating with our families, with our staff, and working with whatever plan we need to, to meet any future requirements.”
MVSD trustees and senior admin are meeting today to review the plan.
“As well as reviewing plans for cohorts, social distancing and enhanced cleaning protocols, we will discuss the potential of supporting the wearing of masks for our staff and middle and senior years students, which may include the purchasing of non-medical masks.”
When planning out cohorts for their schools, Ward says particularly in k-8, they’re looking at classroom groupings. He says cohort sizes are supposed to be 75 students or less and their classes are between 15 and about 24 students on average.
“We’re looking to make sure within those class cohorts, we can maintain at least 1 metre of social distancing between students and where we can provide greater social distancing, that we work to do that. So, essentially from K to 8, it’s largely going to be based on your homeroom, your classroom, which will essentially be your main cohort.”
On the topic of bus students, Ward says buses are considered to be separate cohorts and they’re encouraging parents to provide transportation for their children when possible. Ward says bus services will still be provided where needed. The board is looking at requirements within the buses, such as a seating plan where a student would sit alone on a seat, or if that isn’t possible, with a member of their family or school cohort.
Ward says there’ll be an emphasis on education to keep students safe when not in school and they recognize students will have other activities outside of school, such as sports or other events.
He says the important part of maintaining cohorts in schools is to mitigate the risk of spreading COVID-19.
“In the event that anywhere in the province, there is a case that emerges, it will allow public health officials to quickly and effectively do any contact tracing that they need to do to reduce the spread and to provide the services in healthcare needed for anyone who becomes symptomatic.”
Once again, MVSD’s return to school plan will be released no later than next Monday, August 17th.
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- Contributed by Isaac Wihak
Public health officials announced 35 new cases of COVID-19 on Sunday.
This weekend has added 51 new cases to Manitoba’s caseload and there are now 182 active cases in the province.
Broken down, today’s new cases feature 20 cases in the PMH region, 10 in the Southern Health Region, 4 in Winnipeg, and 1 in the Interlake-Eastern Health Region.
Many of the new cases today are linked to known clusters in the Southern Health region and Brandon or are close contacts to a previously announced case. However, preliminary information does suggest a small number of cases have an unknown form of acquisition.
Right now in Manitoba, 6 people are in hospital with 3 in intensive care, 352 people have recovered and the number of deaths remains at 8.
Dr Roussin gave an update on last week’s announcement of dividing health regions into sub-health regions to give Manitobans a more detailed look at where COVID-19 is.
“We’re working to provide information that is broken down by health districts. Health districts are administrative zones within each regional health authority. This will allow us to break down case numbers in more detail while continuing to ensure the privacy of Manitobans. We expect that this more detailed data will be available later this week on the COVID-19 dashboard.”
756 lab tests were performed on Saturday, which brings the total since early February, to 100,830.
For up-to-date information on COVID-19 in Manitoba, click here.
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- Contributed by Isaac Wihak
With 16 new cases of COVID-19 announced by public health officials, Manitoba's total number of confirmed and probable cases is now 507.
There are 146 active cases in the province, 9 people are in hospital and 3 are in intensive care.
351 people have recovered and there have been 8 deaths.
For up to date info and to access the online screening tool, visit http://manitoba.ca/covid19.
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- Contributed by Isaac Wihak
Two more cases have been linked to the COVID cluster in Brandon.
There are now 10 cases in connection to Brandon's Maple Leaf Foods plant.
Dr. Brent Roussin says there doesn't appear to be any workplace transmission. UFCW Local 832 was calling for the plant to be shut down until at least Monday, August 10th, but Maple Leaf is continuing to operate.
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- Contributed by Tess Kovach
