A significant source of spread of the COVID-19 virus is by people who are asymptomatic, we need to recognize this and act to reduce such spread
On Thursday November 19, I spoke on a Members Statement in the Manitoba Legislature about the importance of people who are asymptomatic with COVID-19 virus infections in the transmission of the virus. We need to recognize this and we need, in Manitoba, to implement best practices recommended by experts and which are being used in other jurisdictions. My Members Statement is below.
The Importance of Asymptomatic individuals to the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic
Eleven months ago, as detailed in
Bob Woodward’s book RAGE, the United States had intelligence the COVID-19 virus
was extremely dangerous. A major reason
was the best estimate from China that 50%
of individuals who were infected had no symptoms. In the Canadian Medical Association Journal, Dr.
Marukas a leading infectious disease specialist, writes - an effective strategy
for stopping the spread of this coronavirus “must focus on detecting both… individuals with and without symptoms”. She continues “For an aggressive
test-and-trace strategy to be effective, resources must be available to
proactively identify and test all close
contacts of individuals newly diagnosed with SARS-CoV-2 infection.” This will make a difference, in part because anyone
identified with a positive test can have their contacts traced. This
is important to slow virus spread.
Further, as Dr. Sandhu
says in the National Institute of Ageing’s Iron Ring report, up to 50-70% of
residents who test positive for COVID-19 in personal care homes are
asymptomatic. To prevent further
devastation to their seniors, on June 9th Ontario called for the testing of all residents and
all staff at personal care homes as soon as an outbreak was detected. I have repeatedly called for this, yet our
provincial government has failed to do this more than five months later. Residents in personal care homes are at the
very highest risk of death from COVID-19.
Manitoba must implement best practices from Ontario.
190 Manitobans have already died from COVID-19 infections. I urge the government to recognize that symptomatic spread is important and to act today on these recommendations.
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