Manitoba premier, chief public health officer to give update on COVID-19 health orders at 12:30 p.m.
CBC
Premier Heather Stefanson and Dr. Brent Roussin will give an update on public health orders in Manitoba this afternoon and are expected to talk about the province's reopening plan.
The premier and chief public health officer are scheduled to speak at a news conference at 12:30 p.m. CBC News will live stream it here and on social media.
The current public health orders are set to expire on Feb. 8, after the province extended the rules set Dec. 21 in response to the rapid spread of the Omicron variant.
When the extension was announced on Friday, Health Minister Audrey Gordon said Manitobans could expect more information this week about the province's plans, including an outline of how the province will reopen.
The aim is to get Manitoba back to a state of normalcy, or a new normal, that allows people to gather without limits, travel, go to restaurants and take in the many festivals in the province, Gordon said.
Manitoba has seen a rapid rise in hospitalizations since December, with more people in hospital with COVID-19 in recent weeks than ever before.
On Tuesday, there were 737 COVID-19 patients in hospital, an increase of two from what was a record-setting number on Monday. That means more than half of the roughly 1,300 hospital patients in Manitoba have COVID-19.
Despite evidence suggesting the Omicron variant is milder that previous variants, January was one of the deadliest months of pandemic in Manitoba, with 170 people losing their lives after contracting the virus.
But officials said in a news release last week that the latest provincial data suggests severe outcomes from the spread of the Omicron variant may have peaked.
The Rachel Notley government's consumer carbon tax wound up becoming a weapon the UCP wielded to drum the Alberta NDP out of office. But that levy-and-repayment program, and the wide-ranging "climate leadership plan" around it, also stood as the NDP's boldest, provincial-reputation-altering move in their single-term tenure.