COVID-19

Lake of the Woods District Hospital says they are continuing to operate and serve residents while facing a ‘critical’ staffing shortage in its Emergency Room department.

Hospital leadership says staff are regularly dealing with high volumes of patients while working overtime and giving up vacation time to cover any vacancies. As a result, the hospital is asking residents to recognize staff’s efforts by being understanding, patient and kind when dealing with staff.

Alberta's COVID updates will be even fewer and farther between moving forward.

The switch to bi-weekly updates was announced during the latest (May 25) update by Health Minister Jason Copping and Dr. Deena Hinshaw.

Minister Copping shared some positive trends for Alberta's hospitalizations.

"We are turning the corner. The number of COVID-positive patients in hospital is down again, and sharply, in the past week."

As of the latest update, 1040 Albertans are being treated for COVID in hospital with 31 of them in intensive care.

The COVID-19 outbreak at the Lake of the Woods District Hospital has been declared over.

This outbreak had been in place since May 5, when two cases of the virus were found after asymptomatic testing of patients. The announcement of the outbreak came just one day (May 4) after the hospital announced its previous COVID-19 outbreak had ended. 

Manitoba is expanding its eligibility criteria for second booster dose of COVID-19 vaccine. Chief Provincial Public Health Officer Dr. Brent Roussin made that announcement last Friday morning.

Effective Friday, the following Manitobans are now eligible:

Vaccination

Manitoba is expanding eligibility for the second booster dose of COVID-19 vaccine to include:

The City of Kenora cut the ribbon on their Glad You Are Here campaign to welcome Kenora residents, seasonal residents, neighbouring communities, and visitors to the city this May long weekend.

Kenora Mayor, Dan Reynard is excited about this event as it’s a sign of summer, as well as events begin and the excitement starts to take off for the community.

“It’s the point where we start to get our summer residents back, but we also start to see the tourists start to move in on the weekends, which leads into the summer activity,” says Reynard.

Alberta is putting the COVID BA-2 virus in the rearview mirror.

Health minister Jason Copping says the numbers are going in the right direction.

"Our average PCR test positivity rate is about 20 per cent as compared to 23 per cent last week and 25.,9 per cent the week before. This is the third week in a row that we've seen dropping positivity rates which means there is less viral transmission in Alberta," Copping explained.

Despite having the second-highest expensive healthcare system in the country, Alberta had the lowest number of ICU beds. A situation that was exacerbated by the pandemic.  

Premier Kenney says, “One thing that we learned during COVID is the Canadian healthcare system does not have an adequate capacity period, full stop. And we learned in Alberta that was especially true.”  

British Columbia's Crown Prosecution Service has confirmed it dropped two dozen COVID-19 violation tickets against three Chilliwack, B.C., pastors who continued in-person worship services in violation of provincial public health orders.

The Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms, which represents the pastors, says the fines would have totalled $55,200.

A Winnipeg church has been fined $9,000 in relation to a college graduation ceremony last year which it now admits broke public health orders in Manitoba.

Springs Church posted pictures of a grad ceremony for its Springs College students on May 20, 2021. It quickly sparked controversy in the province as tight restrictions were in place for public gatherings at the time due to COVID-19.