COVID-19

It’s that time of the year when flu season makes its annual return to the people of Northwestern Ontario.

To prevent getting the sniffles this fall the Northwestern Health Unit has announced they will be adding flu vaccines to their COVID-19 vaccine walk-in clinics starting next week.

Each clinic will be clearly labeled as an Influenza, or a COVID-19 walk-in clinic, or both.

The public can book their flu shot or their COVID-19 vaccine on the NWHU online booking site.

Going into the Halloween weekend, Alberta is reporting 603 new cases in the past 24 hours.

Hospitalizations dropped by 14 to 765.

ICU admissions dropped by five for a total of 180.

Sadly, another eight deaths have been reported for a total of 3,093.

To date, 86.9 per cent of the province have received one dose of COVID vaccine while 79.8 per cent are fully immunized.

Cochrane schools with an alert or outbreak status:

Albertans will now need to provide proof of two COVID-19 vaccine doses to access many restaurants, movies, sporting events, and other businesses provincewide, and that includes recreation facilities in Strathmore. 

For the first time in weeks, the region has reached zero active COVID-19 cases.

The Northwestern Health Unit reported zero new cases today (October 29, 2021). 

The next NWHU daily COVID-19 case update will be Monday, November 1, 2021. 

Manitoba's five-day test positivity rate is slightly lower than four per cent.

The five-day COVID-19 test rate in Winnipeg is 3.9 per cent.

There are 141 new COVID-19 cases in Manitoba. This includes 97 people who are not vaccinated and 37 who are fully vaccinated. Seven new cases are from people who are partially vaccinated. 

Cases by health region include:

• 83 in Southern
• 22 in Winnipeg
• 19 in Northern
• nine in Prairie Mountain
• eight in Interlake-Easter

A Winnipeg church with campuses also in other Manitoba cities as well as Alberta, says that it will offer religious exemptions to attendees for COVID vaccines.

In an email sent to their mailing list for both their Calgary and Winnipeg churches, Springs Church says they will give vaccination exemptions.

"With the vaccine mandate deadlines fast approaching, as a church, we have made the decision to provide Religious Exemptions to our attenders if they think that may help them with their employment," the letter reads.

In her final update before the Halloween weekend, Dr. Hinshaw hopes for everyone to have enjoyable day, but to remember that the province is still in the 4th wave of the pandemic, and caution is needed.

Tips for a safe Halloween can be found HERE.

By following the precautions, it has been proven to limit the spread of the virus. Hinshaw says, “We’ve shown they work time and time again. Let’s make good choices to ensure there’s no Halloween spike in two weeks from now.”

Public health officials advise seven new deaths in people with COVID-19 are being reported today:

A Portage la Prairie Church is the site of a COVID-19 outbreak.

Public health officials advise seven new deaths in people with COVID-19 are being reported today:

The Northwestern Health Unit has reported zero new COVID-19 cases have been found in the region.

Currently, there are two active cases connected to the NWHU catchment area. Both active cases are in the Rainy River Health Region.