A lot of people were expecting a change to public health orders this week, but the change they were met with was a very different one. With the rapid community spread of the omicron variant in all regions of Manitoba, the province of Manitoba has shifted the way it tracks and reports covid cases and is now announcing a change to its management strategy for COVID-19. This paradigm shift, which echoes what has been seen across the country in recent days, is a transition from a focus on a raw number of new cases to a focus on overall system load.

“As the situation has evolved in our province, so has the way we report the information,” says Health and Seniors Care Minister Audrey Gordon. “This has been true since the earliest days of COVID. Going forward, we will now be putting a greater focus on system load and not new cases because we know the number of positive cases in Manitoba is substantially undercounted.”

Premier Heather Stefanson says that it is likely that everyone will be exposed to the virus in the next few weeks, but stressed that this change of direction should not be considered “giving up” on containing the spread of the virus, but instead a redistribution of resources to ensure that care is available for those who are facing more severe outcomes.

Of particular note is data shared by Dr. Joss Reimer, medical lead for the Vaccine Implementation Task Force, on the effect of one, two, or three doses of the vaccine on severe outcomes including hospitalisation, ICU admission, and death. This is information that has been frequently requested but not available until now. Looking at ICU admissions, people with one dose of the vaccine are three times less likely to end up in ICU, people with two doses are 19 times less likely, and people with an additional booster dose are a whopping 139 times less likely to be admitted to ICU.

The news on the front of vaccines for children was mixed. While over half of 5- to 11-year-olds have now had their first dose, children under 5 years are unfortunately not showing the same response to the vaccine as older children so it will likely be some time before a vaccine is available for that age group.

Also announced were two new testing sites in Winnipeg to increase capacity and shorten wait times, one available by appointment only and one a drive-through testing site. No new testing sites were announced for rural Manitoba.