A slight uptick in COVID-19 cases isn’t worrying Manitoba’s top health officials.
Dr. Brent Roussin, Manitoba’s chief provincial public health officer, announced one new case during a testing update July 16. The new case was added to the five new cases previously announced July 15. Had the cases this week not been detected, Manitoba would have been sitting at zero active cases of the virus.
“We've went quite a long stretch with zero cases and then had five, but it was still five cases, in all of July, now six cases in all of July,” Roussin said.
“We need to keep perspective that our numbers remain favorable.”
None of the active cases are in the Northern Health Region. No cases have been reported in northern Manitoba since April 8.
The province was unable to link the origin of one of the five cases detected July 15, meaning it was likely a community-based transmission.
Included in the daily update was Manitoba’s five day positive test rate, which sits at 0.15 per cent – averaging out to one positive case out of every 666 recent tests for the disease. Roussin said Manitobans should use that number to track how the province is doing, rather than the number of positive tests.
“When we keep this number under 1.5 per cent, we're very low,” he said.
“If we started seeing test positivity rates over three per cent, then then that would indicate to us that we're likely seeing significant community based transmission.”
Roussin said stricter public health measures could come back into play even at a lower test rate if hospitalizations spike up. No Manitobans are in hospital with COVID-19.
Manitoba has processed over 73,000 tests since the start of the pandemic.
With low levels of the virus in Manitoba and some travel restrictions lifted, including most affecting northern communities, Roussin warned against making assumptions about people from outside the province.
“We are all in this together and stigmatizing people and trying to shame people - that's not going to help us through this,” he said.
“I just would really caution against that.”
As more Manitobans return to work, Roussin warned businesses to prepare for the start of flu season.
“People with mild symptoms - we just can't have them at work, can't have them at school,” he said.
“We need to start planning to see those [high] absenteeism rates. Everyone should start making their plans for those types of things.”
Roussin also noted that while professional athletes in Manitoba, particularly Winnipeg Jets players, are tested every day, those tests do not take away from Manitoba’s maximum testing capacity.
