WINNIPEG -- Dr. Brent Roussin, the province's chief provincial public health officer, is warning Manitobans to watch out for false information related to COVID-19 online.
Roussin, who announced 270 new cases of the disease and seven new deaths on Tuesday, said he has heard of posts regarding testing that are not true, along with videos of people recording empty emergency rooms for a few minutes.
He said these videos don't prove anything.
"Walking into an emergency waiting room and taking a picture for a few minutes of it being not crowded doesn't mean anything,” he said.
"Our hospitals are nearing their capacity. We have over 200 people in hospital right now with COVID, we have over 40 people in ICU with COVID. We have letters written from all sorts of healthcare workers telling us the demands."
He said the videos of a quiet waiting room for a few minutes are meaningless.
Roussin also addressed rumours circulating about COVID-19 testing in Manitoba.
"There are rumours that lab tests are declared positive without being processed and certainly, this is nonsense," said Roussin.
Tests are processed through PCR technology Roussin said, noting only positive tests are announced as positive.
"It links to messages from registered nurses in the lab and again this points to that this is not accurate information as we don't have nurses working directly in these labs,” he said.
"For whatever reason, there are individuals who want to convince people that COVID is not a true threat. As much as we would all love to put our heads in the sand and ignore what is going on, you can see from our hospitals, you can see from these deaths that I am announcing every day, that we just can't ignore COVID-19."
Manitobans are being encouraged to get their information about COVID-19 from trusted sources such as the government's website which provides daily updates about the disease in Manitoba.
