So far, tighter COVID health restrictions have not been implemented, but Manitoba health officials are advising us to have smaller holiday gatherings.
At a news conference on Wednesday, which focused on the spread of the COVID Omicron variant, health officials said modeling shows a steep spike in cases, possibly up to 1,000 cases a day in January, if we maintain the current course of action.
Manitoba’s chief public health officer, Dr. Brent Roussin said we need to be proactive to stop the variant’s spread, and he urged us to rethink plans for holiday gatherings, inctead of large ones plan smaller gatherings.
Other things we can do to lessen the spread of the highly contagious variant is limit close contacts, practice physical distancing, and get vaccinated, including a third dose if eligible.
So far, Manitoba has 6 confirmed cases of the Omicron variant. Roussin said two were travel-related and the other four were close contacts. Two of those cases were fully immunized and asymptomatic, four were not immunized with three asymptomatic and one had symptoms. None are known to have had severe symptoms, but he cautioned these numbers are too low to say if Omicron isn’t a threat.
And Ottawa has now officially warned us against non-essential international travel because of increasing Omicron infections.
The federal government has already imposed a quarantine on anyone traveling from specific countries where there are high numbers of the variant.
Cases of the highly contagious variant are climbing around the world, especially in the U-K and Denmark, which have vaccinated populations similar to Canada’s.
