Here’s how COVID-19 may factor in 2023 in Manitoba – Winnipeg | 24CA News
Though it might really feel like it’s over, the COVID-19 pandemic continues to be trudging alongside and did nonetheless have an effect on the lives of hundreds of Manitobans in 2022.
At the beginning of the yr, skyrocketing instances of the brand new Omicron variant had already disrupted a variety of vacation plans — and people subvariants are nonetheless making the rounds.
“It continues to be highly contagious and transmissible because of its immune evasiveness. People are getting infected repeatedly,” mentioned Dr. Nazeem Muhajarine, Professor of Community Health and Epidemiology on the University of Saskatchewan.
Though the pandemic continues to linger, Canada is arguably in a greater place heading into 2023 in comparison with 2020 and 2021.
“I think we are psychologically, emotionally … past that point of where we were about a year ago,” mentioned Muhajarine.
Read extra:
Coronavirus: A glance again at 6 months of pandemic in Manitoba
Read More
The downside this yr is a mixed risk of various respiratory sicknesses, together with COVID-19, the flu and RSV.
“It is just not only COVID-19 or the virus that causes COVID-19, but also influenza virus, different strains of influenza.”
As of Thursday, the province instructed Global News that BQ.1 is the dominant subvariant of Omicron in Manitoba. It arose from BA.5, which was widespread within the province this previous summer season.
Given COVID-19 is an ever-evolving virus that specialists say could possibly be round within the years forward, Winnipeg epidemiologist Cynthia Carr says we gained’t need to overlook what we’ve realized.
“Key things that we’ve had in our toolboxes that we know work, to make those more normalized again, (include) wearing masks in crowded indoor spaces, continuing the pressure on government, for example, to continue to invest in better indoor air quality solutions.”
“Certainly we cannot forget that we are a highly interconnected society and with more and more people being mobile, travelling, etc., the ongoing opportunity for every virus is there in terms of spread.”
On the subject of travelling, China just lately reversed public well being measures beneath its “zero-COVID” technique that stored the nation in isolation for practically three years and introduced this week plans to reissue passports and visas for abroad journeys.
This might ship many Chinese overseas for the Lunar New Year vacation in January, elevating considerations about doable virus unfold and the danger of mutations to the virus amid fast unfold.
The federal authorities would require COVID-19 testing for travellers coming into Canada from China, Hong Kong and Macau.
“I think that a lesson learned is the importance of continuing to devote resources to communication, and keeping people updated, even if it’s not in that urgent day-to-day, number of cases, number of deaths, scenario. People do respond to people that they trust,“ said Carr.
Canada’s high vaccination rates offer optimism that COVID-19 will one day fade into the background.
“We are making our way out of this pandemic,” mentioned Muhajarine. But he thinks folks ought to proceed with warning into the New Year.
“I think caution and planning and not really creating almost a mythological situation that actually COVID has disappeared and you’re not vulnerable.”
— With recordsdata from Global’s Rosanna Hempel and Irelyne Lavery
© 2022 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
