Southern discomfort poses early test for new premier, as COVID cases in Manitoba region mount

When Heather Stefanson campaigned to become Manitoba's premier, she told Progressive Conservative Party members that she was the only contender withenough experience in this government to dive straight into the job.

For better or for worse, she has the chance to prove that immediately.

There is no shortageof challenges facing the new premier, from an economic recoverythreatened by a labour shortage to a University of Manitoba striketoa coming winter where the province's rivers maynot have enough water to make any money offelectricity exports.

And the pandemic has stormed back inSouthern Healthto the point where the COVID-19 infection rate is near the third-wave peakin that region while the rest of Manitoba is either containing the fourth wave or never really had one.

There is no nice way to say it: COVID cases are spreading so quicklyin Southern Health, the entire province could pay the price in weeks if the rate of growth is not somehow controlled.

The numbers speak for themselves. Southern Health, which has15 per cent of Manitoba's population, wasresponsible for 34 per cent of the active COVID-19 cases in the province as ofFriday.

People from Southern Health make up 42 per cent of COVID-19 patients in hospital and58 per cent of thepatients in intensive care.

Six out of the nine most recent COVID-19 deaths disclosed bythe province were Southern Health residents.

14.5% test positivity rate

Community spread is also the highest in the region. The five-day test positivity rate in Southern Health reported Fridaywas 14.5 per centmore than seven times Winnipeg's.

Thanks primarily to Southern Health, Manitoba's running average daily number of COVID cases is growing by about 16 per cent a week. The average daily case count now stands at 126 up from 89 two weeks earlierand more COVID-19 patients are now beingadmitted to Manitoba hospitals than leaving them.

The prospect of yet another hospital crunch is enough for some Winnipeggers to call on leaders to build a wall around the city's southern flank and make Steinbach or Winkler pay for it. But that's not practical, even as a rhetorical statement.

Southern Manitoba as a whole, including Winnipeg, is too interconnected to keep people apart.

The disparate pandemic situation demands a more subtle policy response.

On Wednesday, the province's deputy chiefpublic health officer said education must play a role in convincing more Southern Health residentsto adhere to public health measures, or even decide to get the COVID vaccine shots.

It's unclear, however, why messaging would suddenly work now when it hasn't over the previous 20months.

"Weare monitoring the situation in Southern Health," said Dr. Jazz Atwal, suggesting Manitoba Public Health is also considering new measures of some form.

"We're looking at where we anticipate cases to be over the next one to six weeks time and also where hospitalizations and acute-care capacity requirements will be over that time," he said.

The province is taking in a lot of information, he said, and will look at"what else we can do from a public health perspective in those locations and provide some of those recommendations to government."

Will take advice, but 'have to balance': Stefanson

The question is whether the new premier is willing to consider those recommendations and has any subtle policy tricks up her sleeve.

In her first scrum with reporters, she employed the same sort of contradictory rhetoric both she and leadership rival Shelly Glover used in theircampaigns whenasked how they'd handle the fourth wave of the pandemic.

"We'll continue to take the advice of the chief provincial public health officer, but we want to ensure we're out listening to Manitobansas well, who are negatively impacted as a result of closures," she said.

"We'll take the advice, but we have to balance with what this means. If it's looking at lockdowns and things like that, I don't want to be looking at that."

To be clear, that statement is a paradox. Public health advice doesn't always run afoul of business owners. But when it does, a politician can not heed that advice while simultaneously listening to lay people who are opposed to it.

This is important, because Stefanson was a cabinet minister in Brian Pallister's government when the province failed to contain the second wave of COVID-19, which killed hundreds of Manitoba seniors.

She also served as health minister when the same government failed to act quickly enough to contain a third wave that overwhelmed hospitals to the point where 57 COVID-19 patients had to be flown out of province for intensive care.

Stefanson has refused to concede that the PC government's reduction of ICU capacity pre-pandemic exacerbated the third-wave hospitalcrunch. She responded to questions of her role during that the third wave by stating"coulda, shoulda, woulda."

Manitoba is the last province in Canada dealing with a rising fourth wave. As it worsens almost entirely in Southern Health the new premier will be expected to speak plainly about her public-health policy intentions, rather than equivocate.