Sunday, May 9, 2021

Partial Transcript from Press Conference May 9, 2021

From City News, Alex:

Q
Alex:  Good afternoon, thank you both for the time on this Sunday. Just to clarify, how’s it possible that there isn’t spread of Covid in the schools?  I mean, we’ve seen spread everywhere, so how’s it possible that there isn’t spread within the school system?  

A
Dr. Roussin:  Well, there has been spread.  Right?  So, we’ve always said that there is transmission that occurs, it’s just much less transmission in the school setting than in the community setting.  That’s a reflection of all the great work of students, staff, our education departments  — so, we do see transmission that occurs, obviously.  And then what happens is that when you’re having wide-spread community-based transmission, increasing number of case counts within those age cohorts, then you’re just going to see more and more cases that are linked to schools, and so this is why we need to end those transmission cycles and take this time now to flatten that curve. 

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Temur Durrani from the Free Press: 

Q
Temur:  Dr. Roussin, you mentioned that it was a dramatic change in cases which led to this decision today, and you mentioned trends, but that is not a clear enough answer about this massive flip-flop from the Manitoba government, which is still ignoring much of what educators have been calling for, such as prioritizing teachers and childcare staff for vaccines.  During the third wave of the pandemic, public health first said that public health will not be imposing stringent restrictions on businesses and storefronts, even though independent epidemiologists have been asking for that for months, then on Friday you did exactly that, but without any modeling data provided. You said the same thing about schools for the entirety of last year, that cases were not coming from schools. Now, why exactly is this happening today, with the school year almost over? What exactly has changed, if you could be clear for people to understand.

A
Dr. Roussin:  It would be great to have the luxury of those types of things in a 100-year pandemic.  So what we’ve seen is, uh, public health has never said we wouldn’t impose restrictions on businesses.  We’ve always said we’d monitor the situation and may have to impose restrictions.  So, of course we take the least restrictive means, and try to keep businesses open as long as possible, but things change.  And so we see the increasing of cases, that’s changed.  We see the increasing demand on ICU during this week.  That’s changed.  And so now we’ve seen increasing cases in these childhood cohorts, and increasing effects on schools.  So that’s the change. So public health is going to respond based on that to protect the health of Manitobans, and so this is where we’re at at this point.  So we’re always going to take that least restrictive means.  So there can always be questions about why this day and why not another day?  Public health is monitoring a number of things, taking in a lot of factors, and balancing things.  Right?  There’s a lot of benefit to having kids in school, we all know that.  But at some point that balance has to shift, and that's right now in Winnipeg and Brandon.

Q
Temur:  Thank you doctor, that question was good, but it didn’t answer my question about vaccines and prioritization.  But because I only have two questions today, I'm going to ask my second one.  Minister Cullen, in your time as education minister so far, do you think you’ve done a good job of representing the interests of the Manitoba education system during Covid-19?  Do you think it was wise to wait this long before announcing these measures today, when educators have been sounding the alarm about this for months?  And are you going to prioritize, and help press for them to be prioritized during this time, for vaccinations?  

A
MLA Cliff Cullen:  Well, as Dr. Roussin clearly pointed out, we’re in a different world over the last week from where we were prior to that, and obviously these are very tough decisions.  These decisions are not made lightly. We rely on expert advice—expert opinion—when it comes to public health. Protecting Manitobans, and students, and staff, has always been a priority for our government, and certainly from my perspective, of our department. We listen to our educators as well, when we set policy and programs, we rely on their opinion when it comes to education. We’re certainly doing everything we can to make sure that we have safe schools, safe workplaces, and certainly when it comes to the vaccination programs. We have a lot of front-line workers across our province that are also looking for vaccination, and we’ve highlighted these areas. There’s been a change in how the vaccine is rolled out, and we’re looking at these hot-spot areas, and certainly teachers and front-line workers are eligible, in those hot spots particularly. And as Dr. Roussin points out, we’re at age 35 today. We expect by the end of the month, we’re going to be down to everybody age 12 and above. Uh, so we’re going to get there, but it obviously takes a little longer than we thought, and clearly this third wave is upon us, uh so we’ve had to make tough decisions because of it. 

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