Discussions

I see a lot of people saying well they only test the health care workers and the people who have gone out of country so the numbers here have to be much higher here.  
 
If the numbers are way higher then what the tests are saying wouldn’t see the symptoms in the public? My general idea is Manitoba itself is doing pretty good. We have flattened the curve considerably and are treating our sick and getting them back out into the public. Yet when you discuss this with people they almost all seem to think the public is fully infected and covid is everywhere.

I don’t think it’s everywhere but they were refusing to test people unless they had travelled or knew they had been around someone who had been confirmed positive.  
 
The thing is though people infected with covid can be contagious 2 weeks before symptoms and could have spread it to others. Meaning somebody could have got it from a stranger and not knowing that person had tested positive. The newly infected person won’t be able to get tested because they had no idea where they got it from.  
 
So I believe more than 250 people in MB have been infected.

Must also take into consideration asymptomatic people. Many different studies, some showing as much as 50% but the average number seems to be around 25% that show absolutely no symptoms. These people are still contagious.  
 
I don’t believe thousands of people are walking around manitoba with zero symptoms, but it would be ignorant to think there weren’t some.

Ok. I get those points. Since we have been on quarantine now for almost two weeks. Don’t you think it would have runs it’s course for the most part by now. If there was say 500 people in Manitoba infected but not tested. Wouldn’t those 500 people get 500 other people sick. Shouldn’t we be seeing the numbers rise at some point. Instead we’re seeing them level off or decline with people getting better. I just am looking at all the numbers of it all and trying to make sense.

Well hopefully a lot of those people self isolated and didn’t spread it to others, BUT the fact is it could be spreading more than we know because the restrictions are too strict on testing. If people don’t get tested than there is no data on them, meaning the numbers we see from the government are not accurate because they are only testing a select group of people.  
 
I don’t think there is out of control spreading but I believe there are people who have/had it who weren’t tested.

Testing everyone would be a huge feat, especially when the entire world is trying to do the same thing. For people who have some symptoms but don’t meet the criteria for testing, we’re really relying on them self-isolating as directed in case they are infected. Follow the number of hospitalizations as well as that’s a good metric on how we’re doing.

Latest criteria for testing.  
 
https://sharedhealthmb.ca/files/covid-19-updated-testing-criteria-april-16.pdf

A similar question was posed to Dr. Roussin a few weeks ago at one of the press conferences. His answer basically was that if there were a bunch of unidentified cases out there, even asymptomatic ones, they would be spreading it and our hospitalization numbers would reflect that. There hasn't been that spike in hospitalizations that is expected with this infection circulating undetected.  
 
Of course, there's always a lag, so we always get a picture of where the virus was 2 weeks ago, not where it is now.  
 
That being said, because there is that lag, you do need to behave like it's everywhere, because it could be. It's becoming increasingly clear that asymptomatic and pre-symptomatic people are contagious. More robust testing of everyone, sick or not, would give a better picture of what the *current* situation is, but then it becomes a capacity issue.  
 
The current consensus seems to be that you need to go 2 full incubation cycles (i.e. 4 weeks) to say with reasonable certainty that you've staved off the worst or run it's course (depending on it's situation).

IMO... they should be testing everyone and not refusing people.  
 
Sure zero numbers are great but there are poeple out there that have it and dont even know that they should self isolate becuase they think they do not have it or have been refused for the test.  
 
I rather have higher numbers now than waiting for a second wave.

Yup, it's that lag that's going to get us.

I get there is a lag. And I do believe there is a few people out there that have it that have not been tested for sure.  
 
But even if you got 20 people in the public in Manitoba that have it and aren’t tested. Even if they are all asymptotic or don’t show signs of having it. They will infect others. At some point we have to have an increase in hospital cases because of all the transition from these carriers.  
 
But instead here in Manitoba we are seeing the opposite. We’re seeing declining cases daily. People being treated and released. I feel these numbers would only increase if there was a heavy number of contaminated people in the province that have not been teated. A small % of all cases would need to be hospitalized to if there was a heavy infected population also but we aren’t seeing that.  
 
Like I originally said I don’t believe we are out of the woods on coronavirus. But Manitoba itself has been doing very good at combating it.