This will surprise no one, but it is clear that Manitoba’s Southern Health district that includes Steinbach, Winkler and the Rural Municipalities of Stanley and Hanover that surround those two small cities, are the hot bed of Covid-19 in our province. It should be obvious because they are also the places in the province that have the lowest uptake of Covid-19 vaccines. The people here, where I live, have decided that a perverted sense of freedom is more important than public safety.
Yesterday, for the first time, the province released information about the test positivity rates in various districts and this exposed our region’s malfeasance. As Tom Brodbeck of the Winnipeg Free Press said, after looking at the stats of Covid-19 prevalence,
“Not surprisingly, the rate is highest in Southern Health where vaccination uptake is the lowest in the province. The five-day test positivity rate has climbed to 14.5 per cent in Southern Health, up from 9.7 per cent two weeks ago. It’s by far the highest in the province.”
The test positivity rate is 3 times as high as Winnipeg! None of this should surprise anyone. After all the southern Health district is the land of the credulous.
The consequences are also clear. As Brodbeck said,
“More than half of COVID-19 patients in intensive care units (14 out of 24) are from Southern Health and 50 of the 118 hospitalizations come from that region, which makes up about 15 per cent of the Manitoba population. By contrast, only four ICU patients are from Winnipeg.”
Those of us from the Southern Health District should think about that (after getting over our shame) Even though Southern Health has less than 15% of the entire population of Manitoba we account for more than 50% of Covid patients in our ICUs and nearly half of all hospitalizations. As Brodbeck concluded: “The connection between high infection rates and low vaccination uptake in Southern Health is indisputable.”
Frankly, any thinking person must realize by now that it is smart to get vaccinated. In fact not doing so is getting to look more and more like superstition. As Brodbeck noted: “95 per cent of active cases in ICU have not been immunized.”
This figure is even more astounding when you take into consideration that only about 15% of Manitoba’s population are not vaccinated. And from that small population come 95% of all CUU patients!
The conclusion is obvious: If you are not getting vaccinated you are taking bad advice.