The Manitoba government may soon move the province from "red" to "orange" on the provincial pandemic response system and lift yet more restrictions.
Premier Brian Pallister and chief provinicial public health officer Dr. Brent Roussin announced a new round of online consultations on COVID-19-related health orders Thursday, with an eye towards lifting restrictions in the near future. No firm dates for the next round of restriction or health order changes was announced by either official.
Through the engageMB.ca website, the province is hoping to get public opinion on several possible changes, including increasing limits for outside gatherings, cutting back capacity limits for stores and religious ceremonies and expanding indoor dining at restaurants to include a household and that household's designated visitors.
Other possible changes being floated include allowing some organized indoor team sports and lifting mask requirements for youth while playing sports indoors, as well as allowing theatres, concert halls, casinos and game centres to reopen with strict limits.
Another big change being floated is removing the two-week self-isolation requirement for people travelling into Manitoba from elsewhere in Canada for essential purposes.
The province has seen a reduction in recent weeks in people requiring inpatient medical care and intensive care due to COVID-19 in Manitoba - that change, according to Roussin, is a key reason for the proposed changes.
"We have seen our hospitalization numbers and intensive care unit admission numbers moving in that right direction. In addition to that, spring and summer are approaching and we continue to ramp up our vaccine efforts. We continue to vaccinate more and more of our eligible Manitobans as vaccines become available," said Roussin.
"That's why we're in a position to seek feedback from Manitobans on the next step to safely restore our services and activities, while balancing the need to protect the most vulnerable and needing to protect our health care system to make sure it's there for all Manitobans."
One change that is not yet up for debate is raising gathering sizes for meet-ups at personal residences. Roussin said that raising gathering sizes in those settings have a high risk of spreading COVID-19, warning against close, prolonged contact.
“I know that Easter and Passover are coming up soon, and that people will want to gather with their loved ones,” said Roussin. “But we all saw what happened after Thanksgiving last fall – case numbers rose dramatically and we ended up in lockdown for Christmas. We don’t want to see a repeat of that happening again, just before summer.”
