Manitoba experts say circuit breaker lockdown needed to slow spread of COVID-19

Manitoba’s latest round of public health restrictions came into effect on Tuesday, the same day the province set a new record for daily COVID-19 cases counts. However, some experts have been critical of the new orders, calling for a circuit breaker lockdown to slow the spread of the virus.

On Monday, the province announced the new public health orders, which implement capacity limits throughout various sectors of Manitoba.

Leading up to this announcement, some health experts were calling for stricter measures to prevent the rising number of COVID-19 cases in the province. These measures include a circuit breaker lockdown, which is a relatively short lockdown with a set end date

One person calling for a lockdown is Aleeza Gerstein, an assistant professor of microbiology and statistics at the University of Manitoba.

She's hearing from the health-care sector that hospitals are overwhelmed.

"I'm very concerned about what happens to our hospitals in the upcoming weeks, and I think we would be prudent to do everything we can to stop those new infections from happening," Gerstein said.

On Tuesday, the province set a new record for daily COVID-19 cases with 825.

Gerstein said the backlog of PCR COVID-19 tests; along with direction from the province for people under 40 who are symptomatic to assume they have COVID is going to skew the data.

"It would be nice if it wasn’t just reported how many positive cases, say today, but when those swabs were actually taken, so we could start to backdate some cases so we could get a more accurate picture," Gerstein said.

Arthur Schafer, a professor of bioethics at the University of Manitoba, said when it comes to restrictions there needs to be a balance between liberty and preventing the destructiveness of COVID-19.

"The problem is that if we don't impose adequately restrictive measures, and the pandemic spreads, in the end the health system will collapse anyway. People will lose their liberty anyway," Schafer said.

Another concern for Gerstein is what measures will be put in place for students going back to school in January.

"Universities are not going back until at least after the February break,” Gerstein said.

“So I'd like to know what's going to be done to keep our younger kids safe in school."

Gerstein said she would like to see the province push for N95 masks to be provided for front-line workers who don't have the option of working from home.