Post Mortem of Manitoba’s Handling of Coronavirus
UPDATE – Analysis from Israel seems to confirm these Canadian numbers and our experience of declining cases. After looking at world numbers, it appears the virus plays itself out all on its own in about 70 days despite government action or inaction. We might have destroyed our economy for no good reason other than mass hysteria.
Borrowing from my nautical background, there is a document called the Collision Regulations which regulates the safe passage of vessels on the water. In order to prevent collision, ships determine who is the ‘Give Way’ vessel and who is the ‘Stand On’ vessel and then act with due regard to the observance of good seamanship to safely avoid each other.
As an Officer of the Watch on a Navy ship, one of my jobs was to look for possible conflicts with other vessels, work out a plan to avoid them, inform the Captain with my recommendations, follow and execute his orders, monitor the situation until danger of collision was past, then get the ship back on track.
Ideally, you would try to minimize the ship’s detours and time off track as we were always on mission.
Taking another page from my naval career, when lazy leadership wanted to send a message to the sailors, they would enact group punishment. This was particularly detested and unpopular because the many would be unjustly punished for the actions of the few. The reasoning for giving out a general slap across the face was to build unit cohesion and self-policing but the effect was usually just sharp resentment.
Tying these bon mots in with Manitoba’s and indeed most of the World’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic, in my opinion, governments did too little, too late. Then when they did start to act, it was a shotgun approach vice a targeted strategy which succeeded in only panicking their populations and subsequently devastating their economies.
Canadian governments knee-jerk reacted to dubious reports from China, horror stories from Italy, and worst case epidemiological modeling which projected apocalyptic, Biblical ‘End of Times’. This has led Canada into the worst crackdown and suspension of civil liberties probably in the history of our country.
The Manitoba government has been regularly issuing Covid-19 Media Bulletins since January 30. Bulletin #53, April 16, lists no new cases (cumulative total 250), 8 in hospital, 4 in ICU, 121 recovered, and 5 deaths. 18,349 Covid-19 tests have been completed. For comparison for the Manitoba 2017-18 flu season: In total, 508 influenza cases were hospitalized including 35 admissions to intensive care units (ICU) and 46 individuals died. Of those hospitalized and deceased cases, 65% and 76% were aged 65 years and older.
Just as a quick aside, it’s being reported that greater than 90% of Canadian deaths are those 60 years and older. (Sounds eerily like the flu stats that I just spoke of.) ‘Dr. Theresa Tam says outbreaks in long-term care homes are the most crucial COVID-19 problem. Tam is urging all Canadians to continue to stay home to keep older people, who are most at risk, from dying. Half of the 734 deaths in Canada from COVID-19 had occurred in long-term care homes.‘ Um, here’s maybe an alternative thought. How about we protect the most vulnerable of our population and keep them in lockdown instead of destroying our economy by keeping everyone else at home?
By using the Way-Back machine, here is a review of the major points of the Manitoba Covid-19 timeline starting with the first Bulletin issued on January 30.
- For the month of February, the risk to Manitobans was rated as LOW and people had no need to wear masks.
- Early in March, it was recognized that cases were climbing in China and the virus was starting to spread to other countries particularly Iran then Italy. By the end of February, MB had tested 38 people, there were no cases, and Canada had 12 cases.
- March 10, the Province started looking for more Personnel Protective Equipment (PPE). They also stated that when dealing with patients with the virus, the patients and their caregivers would be wearing masks. (This went against the Health Canada, Dr. Tam, advice that masks would not work.)
- March 11, MB recorded its first case (travel related), people traveling from China, Iran & Italy were asked to self-isolate, the WHO declared Covid-19 a pandemic. The government stated ‘Those at the greatest risk of severe outcomes include those over 65 years of age, those with underlying medical conditions and those with compromised immune systems.’ The oft-repeated phrase, social distancing, was first introduced and recommendations set.
- On March 15, all international travelers coming back to MB were recommended to self-isolated for 14 days. Only travelers with symptoms were going to be tested.
So at this point, the bold action would have been to test and quarantine those travelers coming in from the hotspots. Social distancing practices are always a good idea even when a bad flu or the chicken pox is going around, so good recommendation there. They already knew who the target group was so early lock downs of the nursing homes and hospitals made sense (but really did not happen).
- For the next week, testing for the virus ramped up, schools were slated for early closure (March 23 for 3 weeks), events with 250+ were canceled (soon dropped to 50+), daycares, casinos, care homes, surgeries, adult day programs & courts were slated for shutdown. Border measures for drivers were being considered. The Province had 266 ventilators and the Health Science Center was prepping an extra 30 ICU beds.
- On March 20, the government hit the panic button by declaring a State of Emergency. Here is the actual legislation. The directives first applied to public areas, not work. Groups of people of 50+ were banned. The phrase, ‘Flatten the Curve’ was first used as was this being termed a ‘Historic Pandemic’. There were 19 cases (all travel related) in the province.
- On March 23, schools were closed and Manitobans really started into ‘social distancing’ protocols.
- On March 25, a female in her 60’s was the first hospitalization and ultimate death.
- On March 27, the government launched a $4.5M program to help combat anxiety related to the virus. Only groups of 10 people were now allowed. Information checkpoints were set up at provincial borders and the two main airports. Domestic travelers coming to MB were also supposed to self-isolate by this point.
- March 30, the Province moved to really shut things down. No diners in restaurants, no non-essential business, school was cancelled indefinitely, transit was still running but social distancing and flattening the curve were the watchwords. This was when the big push for people to ‘Just Stay Home‘ was used by the Premier. At this point, the province had done 8550 tests, there were 103 cases, 3 in hospital, 2 in ICU and 1 death.
- April 1, a research program with QC, AB and MB regarding the drug hydroxychloroquine was announced. Also, ‘new screening procedures are being implemented for staff working in acute and long-term care facilities.’ This was odd because the hospitals and nursing homes were supposed to have already been on lockdown. The screening is a little hit and miss because many care staff are not having their temperature taken.
- April 5, the cost to Manitobans estimated at an extra $10B
- April 6, Manitobans are told to stay home for Easter, there was a no ‘non-essential’ travel advisory and we still had to flatten the curve.
- April 8, social distancing was credited with keeping new cases low as they had seemed to have peaked back around April 1 but we were cautioned not to let up. Considering, really hardcore social distancing had not reached the 2 week point, this seems like a dubious claim.
- On April 9, the government really hammered home the message that Easter weekend should be spent alone in your house. Operation Safe Apart was announced with pre-set fines of $486/person and $2542/business for people who were not social distancing enough. There’s a snitch line to report your neighbors and extra officers have been hired. That curve was not going to flatten itself despite evidence that MB may have peaked in early April. Hospitals and ICUs have never come close to being pushed to capacity up to this point.
- As of April 16, cases have slowly flattened out to 250 in total with 121 people recovered. 8 people are hospitalized, 4 in ICU and 5 total deaths.
Returning to my Navy examples, our governments saw a potential conflict, started to gather pertinent information, slowly began to react, but instead of acting rationally, they hit the panic button. Then they forgot to monitor the situation so that we could get our country back on track.
To be fair, I can see where confusion would happen as China was lying through their teeth regarding their experience with the virus. (But China always lies so why would anyone take them seriously?) At first, everyone was told human to human transmission wasn’t possible. The risk to Canadians was low (ultimately this is going to be true). But it was the 3.4% mortality rate from China, Italy’s experience, and the influential Imperial College paper model that freaked World governments.
Unfortunately, governments are full of risk adverse bureaucrats and spineless politicians. Instead of targeted approaches to a crisis, it is easier to blanket a situation and punish the masses. Catchy propaganda phrases are designed to cow the population into submission.
Canadian governments should have aggressively quarantined people coming from hot zones immediately instead of belatedly bringing those policies in now. It was identified right from the beginning what age groups were most at risk. So why are there calls at this point to protect the nursing homes? I know for a fact that these homes are not being protected as well as they should be. Monitoring the numbers, it is obvious the virus outbreak peaked, the hospitals were never close to being overwhelmed, and the government’s main weapon, social distancing, appears to have had a limited effect.
So for Manitoba, if this entire episode with the Wuhan virus resolves itself and ultimately ends up being less deadly than a regular flu season, was it worth Manitoba going an extra $10 Billion in debt? Was it worth crippling our economy, throwing thousands out of work and into bankruptcy, and exponentially increasing people’s rates of anxiety, depression and ultimately suicide?
Other World jurisdictions have announced plans to start coming out of this ‘Great Pause’. Will Manitoba come to its senses and restart our economy or will they double down on their policy of keeping us locked down?
Blair is a personification of a ‘Jack of All Trades and Master of None’. He has held several careers and has all the T-shirts. Time to add the title Blogger to the list.