‘We can’t accept this behaviour’: Roussin

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This article was published 16/11/2020 (1809 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

THE province’s top doctor admonished the bad pandemic behaviour of some Manitobans, as the coronavirus continues to spread unchecked.

“A case over the weekend had 85 contacts,” chief provincial public health officer Dr. Brent Roussin said Monday, without providing further details. “We can’t manage this pandemic if cases have 85 contacts.

“Keep track of your contacts. That list should be very small right now, but 85 contacts puts us all at risk. We can’t accept that.”

Meanwhile, Roussin said public health nurses performing contact tracing are receiving verbal abuse when phoning close contacts of confirmed cases to advise them to self-isolate.

“They’re calling people to inform them that they’re cases, they’re calling people to inform them that they’re contacts, and they’re getting yelled at, sworn at,” Roussin said.

“We are all in this together.”

The backlash toward efforts by public health to stop the spread of the deadly contagion is also coming from business operators when nurses inform them employees are ill and cannot work, Roussin said.

“I don’t understand the thought process behind that. Should we have infectious people at your store putting others, putting your patrons at risk? We can’t accept this behaviour,” he said.

Roussin encouraged Manitobans to be a united front in controlling the spread of COVID-19.

“We see in Steinbach, where that hospital is under a lot of strain, the health-care workers are working as hard as they can to keep up with demand. And yet, on the same day, we have a protest, a gathering,” Roussin said.

“We’re announcing double-digit deaths every day, and then we’re protesting things to try to reduce the impact of the virus? How can we reconcile that?”

— Danielle Da Silva