WINNIPEG -- Hours after the province announced increased restrictions in Winnipeg and surrounding areas, the city's Mayor and manager of the city's emergency operations centre have announced what these restrictions will look like within Winnipeg.
On Friday, the province announced it was placing restrictions on Winnipeg due to rising cases of COVID-19. As of Friday, the city had 401 active cases.
The restrictions include mandatory masks in all indoor public places, and group gatherings both indoors and outdoors are limited to 10 people.
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"I'm asking Winnipeggers to embrace this challenge, come together to support these public health orders that are intended to protect the safety of our residents," said Mayor Brian Bowman.
Jay Shaw, the manager of the city's emergency operations centre, said effective Monday until restrictions are lifted, the city will be cancelling all group bookings for groups over 10 people in city-owned parks.
All city-led events, including in-person engagements, are being cancelled, and gathering sizes for funerals and weddings taking place on city property is being reduced to 10 people.
Shaw said he believes the group gathering restrictions do not apply to libraries, arenas, and recreation centres, and will not impact the operations of Winnipeg Transit or Transit Plus.
He said he does not know if the new restrictions will impact the city's Leisure Guide activities, but said he does not believe there will be an impact to recreation services.
"We didn't know up until a few hours ago what the province was doing," Shaw said. "Now that we have the official wording, we are going to take a moment to assess and make sure that we have things right."
He said the city is looking for more clarification from the province, and said there may be more information coming on Monday.
Bowman, who said he heard of the restrictions approximately an hour before they were released to the public, said the city is doing its best to support the public health order, and will be having ongoing discussions with the province over the weekend.
"We are doing the best we can with the information that we get, when we get it," Bowman said.
Shaw said masks have been mandated within city-owned facilities already, and that will not change.
Shaw said the city still has the ability to ticket people for breaking public health orders on city property only.
"Right now for us, the enforcement stays the same – it's through education and information," Shaw said.
