From a Pandemic

NOTES FROM A PANDEMIC

A year of life and death as seen through the nightly dispatches of Free Press editor Paul Samyn Preface Mar. 17, 2021

There were many, many things I didn’t see coming as February became March in 2020. I knew the novel coronavirus was real. I didn’t doubt the way it was infecting life from Wuhan to Rome and aboard cruise ships and international flights. But for the most part, SARS-CoV-2 was an offshore problem, a worry far removed from Portage and Main. Until it wasn’t. Until it was here. Until it began turning our lives upside down. Dis- rupting lives. Threatening lives and livelihoods. The Ides of March a year ago changed everything and everyone. Our newsroom moved to a war footing amid fears the Free Press might not survive. Our business plan already suffered from, to use the pandemic parlance, “a number of underlying conditions.” As we pivoted and socially distanced our way through the early days of the pandemic, we launched something else I wouldn’t have predicted: a nightly newsletter about COVID-19 that would last for more than a year. Our hastily conceived briefing needed an opening intro, something to add a personal touch to the pandemic news of the day, which at the time was often a wall of panic and statistics. That job fell to me. The first few nightly musings were pretty straightforward and simple, but as COVID-19 spread, so did the audience of the newsletter. The daily missive — a mix of hot-takes, political commentary, pandemic peculiarities, the odd dose of humour and dollop of inspiration, and more insights about our family than my dear wife ever wanted shared with the wider world — struck a chord with its readership. In short order, the nightly briefing note was reaching more than 100,000 readers — many of them far from Portage and Main and some with no personal ties to Manitoba. I didn’t expect the number of newsletter readers would soon surpass the number of people who receive our print newspaper on their doorsteps. I also didn’t foresee how much closer we would become to our readers at time of enforced social distancing. The newsletter frequently became a starting point for conversations, enabling me to hear about your fears and frustrations. Many a nightly opening was inspired by what you told me, what you wanted shared with the broader community, what you needed our reporters to chase down and deliver for the front page. All of which takes me to the final thing I didn’t see coming a year ago: this book that’s a collection of the nearly 300 entries to our nightly newsletter. By its very nature, Notes From a Pandemic is partly a diary of my journey, my reflections on COVID-19; however, it’s also a log of what we’ve all been through, what we’ve had to navigate and what we’ve endured. In the entries, you’ll find death and tears, because there have been too many deaths and too many tears. There is no shortage of confusion and uncertainty because confusion and uncertainty have been the defining elements of COVID-19. But you’ll also find hope, because so many have found a way to shine a light through this dark time, to make a difference when it was needed most. Throughout this collection, there is also a recognition of the importance of you, the reader, and heartfelt appreciation for those whose support makes our journalism possible. I still have no idea how I’ve managed to come up with something to write night after night, but the part I played in this newsletter has been one of the most rewarding experiences of my 32 years at the Free Press. As a way of saying thank you, we are making this ebook available free to everyone who turned to us for information they could trust about the story of our lives. We’ve all been through a lot because so much happened to our world. This ebook ensures you’ll have a record of sorts to the story of our lifetime with all the emotions and emptiness, the science and the cynicism, the lockdowns and the loss, the politics and the promise of better days. And now, on to the year that was, as captured by our nightly COVID briefing. Tuesday, Mar. 17, 2020: A newsletter is born

This isn’t a bulletin I imagined we would be writing a month ago. But as we all know all too well, the novel coronavirus has changed things in ways we hadn’t previously imagined. So welcome to the first edition of our new COVID-19 briefing, a free newsletter we will be producing daily to be delivered to anyone who wants to keep up to date on the latest developments involving the pathogen. Our goal is a simple one that is consistent with our journalistic mission: providing you with information that matters from a source you trust. Any story we send you in this mailing can be read free of charge without running into the paywall that is critical to our financial future. Given how fast this story is moving, we believe this daily briefing will be an essential read. Please let me know what you think of this newsletter or send along any questions you believe our newsroom needs to answer about COVID-19. And feel free to share this newsletter by forwarding it to friends and family so they can be as informed as you. C M Y K PAGE A1

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FRIDAY, MARCH 13, 2020

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● COVID-19 PANDEMIC HITS HOME Manitoba announces three presumptive cases of coronavirus

CAROL SANDERS AND LARRY KUSCH

HE province’s first three presumptive COVID-19 cases were Treported Thursday, as testing for the disease ramped up in Mani- toba. The novel coronavirus is “on the move and rapidly progressing,” Health Minister Cameron Friesen said Thursday morning at a hastily called news conference. Hours after announcing the province’s first presumptive case of coronavirus, two more cases in the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority area were reported. Two men, both in their 30s, were apparently “exposed to the virus through recent travel,” a Manitoba Health bulletin said. Manitoba’s first case involves a Winnipeg woman in her 40s, who recently travelled to the Philip- pines. Public health officials said passengers on certain flights on March 7-8 may have been exposed to COVID-19: •Philippines Airlines Flight PR466 to Incheon, South Korea,from Ma- nila:rows 48 to 54; MIKAELA MACKENZIE / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS • Air Canada Flight AC0064 to Vancouver International Airport Jerson Salas waits for a bus on Portage Avenue Thursday. Salas relies on Winnipeg Transit to get around — which makes social distancing a challenge. See story on A4. from Incheon: rows 30 to 36; •Air Canada Flight AC8624 to Win- nipeg from Vancouver:rows 24 to 29. “People who may have been on these flights in the rows indicated... When real-world drama, dystopian fiction meet are asked to self-isolate and monitor themselves for symptoms for 14 days since their last known contact MELISSA MARTIN split off from each other, accord- The novel coronavirus bears many a minute. or exposure,” a Manitoba Health ing to the general disposition of the risks, but it is not a destroyer. In the So hang on to this: most of us will be news release said. OPINION author: maybe, as society shut down, broadest possible view, we— in the OK. Some of us will get very sick, but If someone develops a fever higher humanity collapsed into a seething big sense, as a group — are going to recover; others will not, and we must than 38 C (100.4 F), cough, short- wreck of violence and desperation. get through this OK. Things suspend- do everything possible to reduce that ness of breath, difficulty breathing, VER since I was a girl, I craved Or maybe they held on together, ed now will be renewed; lives paused latter number. But some day this will or any other symptoms at any time the end of days, if only in fiction. built new foundations, and met the will resume. be over, and while we may remember during the 14-day period, they should EI read near every dystopian epilogue with faces turned to the But the coming weeks are still go- 2020 as the year the world lost, we’ll call Health Links at 204-788-8200 or novel I could get my hands on, every sun. ing to hurt, and they’re going to be be looking back from a vantage point 1-888-315-9257 (toll-free), or 911 if it feverish post-apocalyptic vision. That was what transfixed me most, scary, for one reason among many that doesn’t look so different than it is an emergency. Be sure to advise They were all the same story, but those answers to unimaginable ques- that all of a sudden, nothing feels did before. health officials about travel and/or seen through lenses tilted at slightly tions; exploring those was the genre’s right and nothing looks normal. In a This will be an incredible test of exposure history. different angles; the same broad true lesson. The end of the world isn’t matter of hours, all the little things all our social structures and institu- In announcing Manitoba’s first brush strokes, laid by different science fiction: it has come many that gave shape and solidity to our tions, from political leadership and COVID-19 case, Friesen said the bristles. times, to many peoples and civiliza- lives were thrown into doubt and then health care to the basic relationships health-care system followed all They always started withfear, with tions. Yet we’re still here, still clinging disarray. by which we care for each other.Ev- “proper protocols and took all neces- a dread that clung to its characters to the illusion of permanence of what Schools closed. Work from home. ery response will be imperfect; but sary precautions to ensure the safety like a stain that couldn’t be scrubbed. we’ve created. Sports cancelled. Large gatherings it’s a test, and we can pass it, and also of all involved, including the patient, Then the narrative would delve into The good news is that what we are gone.This onslaught of news has learn from the questions that we did staff and other patients.” the shattered world it had created, facing in COVID-19 is not the end of a way of making everything feel fail. studying the strange fracturing of the world. Not even close. This will chaotic: our brains are fine machines, the life we’d known. not be the big one experts sometimes but poorly equipped to analyze threat ● PANDEMIC, CONTINUED ON A2 It was here the stories tended to gloomily predict. when it’s bombarding us at 500 tweets ● MARTIN, CONTINUED ON A2 Fear grips investors in stock markets’ ‘unprecedented fall’

ALEKSANDRA SAGA plummeted 1,761.64 points, or 12.34 ed nearly 11-year bull-market run. after Saudi Arabia moved to boost oil Wall Street, said Small. per cent, to 12,508.45 with every sec- The Nasdaq composite fell by 750.25 production in a price war with Russia. Trump announced travel restric- NORTH American stock markets tor in the red and just above a daily points, or 9.43 per cent, to 7,201.80. European markets did not fare well tions on Europe that aim to limit the continued to plunge Thursday as news low of 12,451.12 points. The collapse in Toronto and on U.S. either. They lost 12 per cent in one of virus from spreading. He hinted at of large-scale cancellations failed In New York, the Dow Jones indus- markets at the start of trading was their worst days in history. plans for tax cuts and other economic to ease investors’ concerns about trial average dropped 2,352.60 points, large enough to trip circuit breakers The market is trying to determine relief, but did not provide details. The the spread of the novel coronavirus or 9.99 per cent, to 21,200.62. That’s that forced a pause in trading. how much companies are worth, said travel industry, particularly airlines pandemic. the worst day for the index since a This followed news that the NBA Small. and cruise ships, has been battered by “This is an unprecedented fall,” nearly 23 per cent drop on Oct. 19, had suspended its season, which in “It doesn’t know because we don’t the pandemic. said Allan Small, senior investment 1987, also known as Black Monday. turn led the NHL to suspend opera- know how long this virus will linger Small said investors need to hear adviser at HollisWealth, who has been The S&P 500 index shed 260.74 tions and most major concert tours and how long it will have an impact on that the government is here to help working in the investment world for points, or 9.51 per cent, to 2,480.64. were called off. business,” he said. and no business will be left behind almost 25 years. That’s a total drop of 26.7 per cent Stock markets had been under On Wednesday, investors hoped U.S. during the outbreak. “I have never seen the velocity of from its all-time high set just last pressure in recent weeks amid con- President Donald Trump “would give this fall as steep or quick as it is.” month, well past the threshold for a cerns about the spread of COVID-19, us something to hang our hats on,” but The S&P/TSX composite index bear market. It snaps an unprecedent- however losses picked up this week his prime-time address disappointed ● MARKETS, CONTINUED ON A2

MORE ON CORONAVIRUS PM’S WIFE NOT YET A CLOSE CALL TRUMP EXPOSED TESTS POSITIVE SHOW-STOPPER AT FIRE STATION TO VIRUS Sophie Gregoire Trudeau has contracted Curtain expected to rise on most Exposure concerns led nine Winnipeg Fire Visitor to Trump’s property — who took coronavirus, Justin Trudeau self-isolates / A3 Winnipeg productions — for now / A5 Paramedic Service staff to be isolated / A8 photo with president — tests positive / A11

A_01_Mar-13-20_FP_01.indd A1 2020-03-12 11:12 PM Mar. 18: Fighting misinformation

On Tuesday, we launched a new email newsletter focused on coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic to a select number of readers. To those readers, thank you for all the positive feedback.

What I heard from many of those readers was recognition of the value of a package of information from a trusted source that ensures everyone can be in the loop on this story that continues to mutate. There was also evidence Tuesday on how easily misinformation can be spread and result in instructions that are problematic. Shortly after Premier Brian Pal- lister spoke at the daily briefing, a high school sent out a message to parents that the province was encouraging parents to keep their school-age students at home for the rest of the week. Alas, that was not the case. Granted, the harm from that bit of misinformation was minimal given how few kids are actually still attending school this week. But imagine if the misinformation that landed in your inbox was telling you that hospitals were suddenly closed, or that the buses were no longer running? This briefing is designed to ensure that whatever happens in the weeks ahead — whether the news is good, bad or ugly — you will know you can trust what you read. Keep reading and keep washing those hands.

Mar. 19: ‘Ginormous flaming curveball’

When we say that we are now sailing in uncharted waters, that includes us in the media. We haven’t covered a fast-moving pandemic such as COVID-19 before. We aren’t experts in public health, and we don’t have crystal balls.

In my case, the closest I’ve come to the sense of unease now taking root everywhere was as a reporter in New York on 9/11, and when I was working at our legislative bureau during the 1997 Red River flood. In both cases, anxiety was the new normal. In other words, we are learning on the fly and doing so while dealing with a whole lot of other challenges facing our industry. To wit, this quote from the Nieman Lab that arrived today in one of the many journalism newsletters on my reading list: “The coronavirus pandemic threw a ginormous flaming curveball at the news media industry, from turning newsrooms remote to eviscerating whole streams of revenue. It’s really easy to panic when you don’t know what the next day or even the next hour will bring, much less how to plan for it.’’ I am happy to report there is no sense of panic in our newsroom, even though we don’t know what the next day will bring. Whatever it does bring, we will do our best to get it into this newsletter and on our pages for you.

Mar. 20: Antidote to the infodemic

Among the changes wrought by COVID-19 is what it is doing to our vocabulary. Words such as symptomatic and asymptomatic are now part of everyday conversation. We’ve had to learn the difference between an epidemic and pandemic. So, here’s another word to ponder: infodemic. According to the World Health Organization, slowing the spread of coronavirus also means taking steps to respond to the risk of the infodemic — a global glut of information that makes it difficult to separate truth from the untruth. “We know that every outbreak will be accompanied by a kind of tsunami of information, but also within this information you always have misinformation, ru- mours, etc.,’’ Sylvie Briand, director of infectious hazards management at WHO’s health emergencies program, told The Lancet. “We know that even in the Middle Ages there was this phenomenon. But the difference now with social media is that this phenomenon is amplified, it goes faster and further, like the viruses that travel with people and go faster and further. So, it is a new challenge, and the challenge is the [timing] because you need to be faster if you want to fill the void... “What is at stake during an outbreak is making sure people will do the right thing to control the disease or to mitigate its impact. So, it is not only information to make sure people are informed; it is also making sure people are informed to act appropriately.’’ My hope is that this newsletter — being delivered in the midst of what is now a state of emergency in Manitoba — will be the antidote you need to that infodemic. And to further inoculate you from the risks posed by the infodemic, we are inviting you to send us the questions you need answered. Please send your questions about all things COVID-19 to coronavirusquestions@ freepress.mb.ca and we will do our best to get answers as part of this newsletter.

March 21 and 22: Looking back at SARS

The spread of COVID-19 has triggered in me a sense of déjà vu that goes back to the birth our daughter. In June of 2003, we were living in Ottawa as severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) was on its way to killing nearly 800 people around the world. Masks were in vogue. Public entry to hospitals required running a gauntlet of scrutiny. Hand-washing stations were everywhere. My wife actually enjoyed the relative peace and quiet on the maternity ward, as visitors were greatly restricted. Nearly 17 years later, we are all now dealing with a self-enforced peace and quiet that’s part of the new normal brought about by the coronavirus. It’s safe to say my wife isn’t enjoying this new reality while our daughter, like students everywhere, is about to find out what home schooling is like. Over the course of the coming week, our newsroom will take stock of how we are all dealing with life at a distance and how students are faring with distance learning. You’ll find the results of that journalism here, along with our ongoing coverage of the pandemic.

Mar. 23: Helping businesses

While many of us may never get tested for COVID-19, that doesn’t mean we are safe from the economic side-effects of this pathogen. With that prognosis in mind, the Free Press is calling on our readers to see what can be done to limit the casualties in our business community from the coronavirus. The projections of job losses and growing threat of a recession are cause for concern for everyone, but for those running restaurants, small mom-and-pop shops, fitness clubs and hair salons, the danger is clear and present. Melissa Martin will today deliver a piece that is part rallying cry and part much-needed advice on how we can all help the local businesses that make our community stronger. As part of that effort, we are building a free service to list which restaurants are still open, if they deliver or if you can still swing by for takeout. We will get that up as soon as possible. In the meantime, we are urging all restaurants to watch our website for details on this listing service. Finally, we are launching a special experiment with a reader-generated column that will allow us share your experiences, your thoughts and your concerns. In short, please tell us your stories during this historic time via this online portal.

Mar. 24: Life in isolation

MIKAELA MACKENZIE / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Free Press reporter Alan Small lived in isolation for months during the pandemic. For our Alan Small, COVID-19 is a case of been there, done that — doing it again. Some background: Our readers might recall a feature we wrote last year about how Alan received a kidney transplant that changed his life — by essentially saving his life. Following that surgery, Alan spent three months in self-isolation as anti-rejection medication suppressed his immunity. All of which takes us to today, where Alan is working from home instead of our newsroom as he is at an increased risk of contracting COVID-19.

We asked Alan to write a piece so everyone could understand what life in isolation is like from someone who had to live it for months. We also hope that anyone who reads Alan’s personal story will have a better appreciation of why we all can do our part to help people like him stay healthy and safe.

Mar. 25: Wherefore, sports?

It’s neither secret nor a surprise that everyone’s work world has been turned upside down because of COVID-19 — and that includes those of us toiling in newsrooms.

For example, the Free Press no longer has a separate sports section except for our Saturday paper as there is little in the way of sports to cover these days. That that doesn’t mean we can’t still talk about sports, but how do you manage to deliver a podcast and still keep up with social-distancing requirements? The solution for the latest episode of Jetcetera had sports editor Steve Lyons with a live microphone in his office in the newsroom, Mike McIntyre sitting in his car in his driveway, while Jen Zoratti took care of the production via Zoom from her home base. The result is here for your listening pleasure as Steve and Mike discussed the impact the coronavirus is having on the sports world, from the cancelled 2020 Summer Olympics to the implications for the upcoming seasons of the Blue Bombers, Goldeyes and Valour FC.

Mar. 26: Schools remain closed Dr. Brent Roussin is a public health officer, not a school principal.

MIKAELA MACKENZIE / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Dr. Brent Roussin is Manitoba’s chief medical health officer.

But in the midst of this pandemic, what Roussin thinks and what he recommends will trump principals everywhere when it comes to deciding when kids will finally return to classrooms in Manitoba. “It’s difficult to comprehend a scenario where we would be returning people (and) lifting our social-distancing strategies any time in the next few weeks,” Manitoba’s chief medical health officer said Thursday when asked about the possibility of schools remaining closed beyond April 10. April 10 is the scheduled end of the extended three-week spring break announced earlier by the province. No doubt, 200,000 students and their parents will be hanging on every word Roussin says in the days ahead.

Mar. 27: Manitoba’s first death

And so the deadly reality of COVID-19 has now hit home in Manitoba. “It’s a tragic loss,” Dr. Brent Roussin said Friday morning as he announced the death of a woman in her 60s. “It’s a Manitoban that we lost and our hearts go out to their friends and family.” While we may be saddened, we shouldn’t be surprised, nor should we pretend that there won’t be more Manitoba lives lost to coronavirus. Our headline on last Saturday’s front page read “UNCHARTED TERRITORY” for good reason. No one knows how long this will go, how many lives will be affected, or what’s next. As a newsroom that has moved to “all-hands-on-deck” status, the only thing to do is stay on top of the ever-evolving story of COVID-19. And the fact there are 50,000 of you reading this newsletter each night certainly serves as motivation for our staff to push even harder to get the information you need in these trying times. Thank you for reading!

Mar. 29: No escape

A year ago, our spring break meant a family escape to Mexico. This year, there is no escape for my family — or yours. We are all going nowhere. We are all stuck at home. We are all being told to wash our hands over and over. The only sign that spring break had indeed arrived on our street yesterday was our neighbours who set up some lawn chairs on their driveway, all two metres from each other. The week ahead will see public gatherings capped at 10, more positive cases in our province, and yes, more deaths. In other words, there will be no break from COVID-19 this spring break.

Mar. 30: Staying informed

My weekend of online reading was filled with literally nothing but COVID-19. But one particular item that caught my attention in the endless scroll came from Vermont Gov. Phil Scott, in large part because of how he captured the role of journalism in the eye of the pandemic that is threatening the jobs of journalists everywhere. “Few things are more important than having the facts and being informed,” Scott intoned in the video, posted on Twitter. “That’s why today I am asking you that if you are able, to support local journalism. Like many in business, trusted news organizations and local papers are being hit hard by this pandemic… If you can, please consider buying your local paper.” I’m mentioning Scott’s message with you in part because it’s in sharp contrast to the tweets coming from U.S. President Donald Trump who repeatedly attacks reporters who dare question his handling of the coronavirus.

But the other part of my motivation is that Scott is echoing many of the comments readers of this newsletter continue to send us about the importance of facts and being informed by a source you can trust. That’s a message I know you understand and appreciate, and it’s one I wouldn’t mind you sharing with those who aren’t reading this newsletter or supporting a newspaper like the Free Press.

Mar. 31: Testing our limits

It’s sometimes hard to understand things that test the limits of our comprehen- sion. And right now, COVID-19 is testing all our limits. So we in the media look for ways to make things easier to grasp. We will focus on one person’s story so there is a face to the statistics that otherwise seem numb- ing. Or we will look at markers that help put things into perspective. Here’s one from the Washington Post that forced me to pause today as it was a reference point to an event I covered in New York as a reporter that changed everything until this pandemic came along: more people have died in the U.S. from the coronavirus than in the 9/11 attacks.

We know that the death toll in the United State won’t stop at the 3,400 casualty count of Sept. 11, 2001. We also know that more Canadians will die from COVID-19 in the coming days and weeks, too. But maybe the realization that the United States and Canada need to treat this threat with the same level of urgency and sacrifice that was directed at the war on terrorism will help limit the damage this pandemic does to our two nations. Wednesday, Apr. 1: Windows on the world

During the pandemic, photographers took pictures of subjects staring out their windows.

Here’s a snapshot of how our newsroom is adapting to cover COVID-19: windows. For reasons entirely related to social distancing, our photographers have been taking lots of pictures of subjects staring out of windows. In the past week, we’ve had two front pages reflecting that new visual reality. One involved a shot of a husband-and-wife therapist team framed by their window for a story about how they were offering free sessions while stuck at home. The other was of friendly and fuzzy faces of teddy bears looking at the camera from the front window of Sheila Restall’s home for a story on the Great Winnipeg Bear Project. Inside today’s edition, the closest we could get to 101-year-old David Thompson was his top floor window at the Misericordia Hospital where he gave us a wave we captured from the ground. I am sure there will be more as our photographers look for ways to focus on what is important while also respecting people’s varying comfort levels. Where windows once would have been considered an artsy look, they are now all about practical photography. One last note about our team of photographers who don’t have the luxury of working from home as they race from assignment to assignment to ensure there is a visual record of what we are all facing in this city and province: They are a talented, dedicated and increasingly brave group of journalists. And while they may be relying on long lenses these days, there is no shortage of empathy for the subjects in their viewfinders.

Apr. 2: One million cases

It’s a dashboard that doesn’t come with a parental warning, but the numbers and graphs assembled by Johns Hopkins University are as stark a warning as any I’ve seen since our lives began to revolve around COVID-19. On the left side of the interactive tracking map is a column in red recording the spread of the disease by every country that’s been infected. That column is topped by the total number of confirmed cases that passed one million worldwide for the first time today. I’ll pause for a moment to let that sink in. On the right hand, is a column listing deaths by country and the latest global tally of 52,863 (as I write this) — again, another remarkable figure that reveals the exponential threat of the disease that we only became aware of a little more than three months ago. So since you’ve now been warned about what the interactive contains, you can access it if you want here.

Apr. 3: The mask debate

The discussion at our morning meeting — conducted with various editors going to some lengths to maintain the required social distancing — was tripped up when a possible local story on masks for those in the public came up for discussion. For weeks now, we have been reporting the advice of health experts that protective facemasks didn’t need to be part of COVID-19 defences when out in public. And yet, what was once the conventional wisdom based on scientific evidence was upended as the U.S. Centers for Disease Control recommended face coverings when outside the home. In Canada, the thinking has now moved to the view that wearing masks won’t hurt even though there is not yet an official directive. So with that in mind, we figured that if masks were about to become fashionable in the age of corona, then we might as well assign a reporter to see how two local firms are gearing up to make masks for those who aren’t on the front lines of the health- care system. But we also wanted to have something that reflected the confusion, uncertainty, anxiety and constantly shifting streams of “reliable” information that is all part of this pandemic, and so we have unmasked this editorial.

Apr. 4 and 5: A toast

There’s a bottle of chardonnay in our fridge ready for the Sunday dinner I am making for my family. Like everyone, everywhere, we are homebound, so I’ve got nothing better to do than put some comfort on the menu. In our case, it’s going to be some crispy chicken in mustard sauce from the Barefoot Contessa. But as part of that menu, an essential ingredient was some white wine to deglaze the pan. That meant I had to make my way to what Manitoba has declared an essential service, where the staff at our neighbourhood Liquor Mart stand on duty behind plexiglass shields. Even if you haven’t already checked out Ina Garten’s recipe, you have probably guessed I won’t need the entire bottle to deglaze the pan. Fair point. But at times like these, it doesn’t hurt to have some wine on hand to toast our health — and yours.

Apr. 6: Pay cuts

Newsrooms are designed to cover the news. However, when the news involves the newsroom, we sometimes aren’t quite sure how to proceed. It might have something to do with journalistic distance, or maybe it’s just that we are more comfortable reporting on others rather than ourselves. But like businesses everywhere, the Free Press is not immune to the economic impact of COVID-19, and so the paper is now among the headlines of those making difficult decisions to deal with the financial fallout from the virus. In our case, everyone here is taking a big pay cut in order to keep doing what you need us to do in these trying times. We’ve turned to our publisher Bob Cox to outline the situation we are now in and the steps taken to keep publishing the Free Press. You can read his column here. In the meantime, on behalf of our newsroom, I wanted to thank our subscribers for supporting our journalistic mission. The notes of appreciation many of you are sending to us are helping now more than ever. And if you are not yet a subscriber and believe in our mission, you can join our growing audience here.

Apr. 7: A mask fit for a journalist

Longtime faith writer Brenda Suderman gifted Paul Samyn with a homemade mask.

We aren’t at the point that the few of us still working out of our Mountain Avenue newsroom are wearing face masks. At least not yet. But if and when that day comes, I have at the ready a mask fit for a newspaper newsroom, fashioned from quilting fabric, featuring headlines, fonts and pictures from front pages of the past. The designer of my mask is someone many of readers will recognize as longtime faith writer Brenda Suderman. Brenda — who is making the masks for free, but inviting donations to Home Street Mennonite Church — surprised me with the gift just a day after Dr. Theresa Tam, Canada’s chief public health officer, said non-medical masks can help stop the spread of COVID-19. Not surprisingly, we have more than a few stories on this new medical advice and how people are reacting in today’s newsletter. While I can’t sew stylish protective masks like Brenda, I can ensure our newsroom delivers information you can trust to help protect you and your family during this pandemic.

Apr. 8: Sew simple

The gesture was a kind one that included a note to stay safe. And my intention was to show my gratitude to Brenda Suderman by way of a shout out in last night’s edition of this newsletter for the newsy facemask she gave me. Alas, all I did was end up swamping Brenda Suderman with requests for more masks than she could possible produce. “Hi, Paul: So this is a good example of unintended consequences,’’ began Brenda’s note to me a few hours after the mailing went to the 100,000 readers on our distribution list. Not to worry. When life gives you a demand for COVID-19 masks, we will find a way to stitch together lemonade, or at least some intended consequences. Brenda, our longtime faith writer, has written a column that unmasks her experience of the past 24 hours that comes with an offer to stitch up a solution to the demand she can’t possibly fill with her home sewing machine. At the same time, the Free Press is creating a listing service that helps connect those looking for face masks with those able to produce them. You can read Brenda’s column here, which includes info on how to access our new sew simple service.

Apr. 9: Voices of the pandemic

They aren’t just essential workers — they are essential viewing. Every day, without fail, Dr. Brett Roussin and Lanette Siragusa take to the stage to deliver the latest on Manitoba’s fight against COVID-19. A month ago, who would have recognized the public health duo? But thanks to the virus, they have become virtual celebrities. As Melissa Martin notes: “More than any reporter, more than even Premier Brian Pallister, they are the voice of the pandemic, the narrators of the COVID-19 story in Manitoba.” On Thursday afternoon, Roussin and Siragusa had what passes for good news these days as Manitoba’s positive case count increased by only four, but that doesn’t change their message about the need to social distance, to wash your hands and to stay home — even though the Easter weekend has long been made for big family gatherings. As there will be no rest for Roussin and Siragusa this long weekend, we thought it was time for Melissa to turn the spotlight on the chief public health officer and the chief nursing officer. You can read Melissa’s column here. Apr. 10: A simple, effective PSA

We’ve all heard the advice over and over again since our lives began to revolve around the fight against COVID-19. Wash your hands and social distance. Rinse and repeat. And yet for some reason, not everyone has got the message. So maybe there has to be different way to drive home the point? Enter this clever PSA from the Ohio’s Department of Health. It’s so simple and so powerful. And maybe that’s one of the reasons Ohio — the first U.S. state to close its schools — is having success combating the coronavirus. Please feel free to pass this message along — especially if someone you know is still planning a big family gathering at Easter.

Apr. 11 and 12: Easter Bunny essential

Perhaps it was fitting that when the coronavirus was turning our world upside down, we all got some help from a land Down Under. New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern was the first world leader to declare the Easter Bunny to be an essential worker, and for that she deserves credit for ensuring a treasured bit of normalcy was part of this abnormal Easter. In our house, the traditional Easter egg hunt began with the same level of enthusiasm as always, even though two of our three children are now adults. (Full disclosure: my dear wife is clearly essential as she was the one who stocked up on Easter treats as part of her pandemic prepping.) At a time like this, Ardern was right to recognize how essential the Easter Bunny is — and not just for kids. Social distancing shouldn’t mean we no longer connect to cherished customs, where possible. Easter egg hunts are a reminder of the rebirth and renewal that have always been part of this season. Now more than ever, we need to have faith that better days are to come.

Apr. 13: Weathering the pandemic

I’m not sure what counts as a glimmer of hope these days. And to be honest, I’d even welcome a weather forecast that saw something akin to normal April temperatures rather than the February-like wind chills that will be the norm for much of this week. But on the bigger question on how Manitobans are weathering the pandemic, Dr. Brent Roussin didn’t have an answer yet, but he did give us a hint. “If we can double our efforts we may be weeks away from being able to scale back some of these restrictions, but we need to ensure we keep on top of this now and then follow our numbers closely,” Roussin said at today’s update. The numbers released today show just four new cases of the coronavirus in Manitoba, bringing the total to 246. No new cases were reported Sunday, while the daily average for the past week has been six. I’m pretty sure if Roussin were asked, the province’s chief public health officer would say talk of reopening Manitoba — just as talk of reopening the U.S. now making headlines — is way too soon. But at least Manitoba’s numbers, along with Roussin’s use of the phrase “scale back,” means that might be a conversation we will be having when we shake off winter and head into a hopefully warmer May.

Apr. 14: The cough box

The early morning email from our publisher was nothing to sneeze at. (As a rule, I try not to sneeze or cough at emails from the publisher regardless of when they land in my inbox, but please hear me out.) According to a new study from Western University, researchers using a “cough chamber” determined that two metres might not be enough social distance to keep everyone safe from COVID-19. The London, Ont.-based university used a two-metre enclosed cube with an opening and a chin rest in the front to test how far and fast droplets can travel. What the internal camera and laser helped determine is that the droplets from a cough will reach someone who is two metres away within three seconds and will then continue to projectile forward beyond the recommended limit now in place for social distancing. I mention this study not to simply add something more to worry about in a world already full with worry; instead, my goal is just to point out how quickly our understanding is evolving of this coronavirus that is indeed still novel. Once upon a time, we were told masks were unnecessary, until we were encouraged to start wearing them. And now, just as a conversation is starting about the possibility of easing up on restrictions to restart the economy, we learn about the results of a cough box. Clearly, there is no magic number that guarantees protection for social distancing, or for that matter, solves the bigger equation of when it’s safe to return to whatever is the new normal. And that means the discussions between the politicians and public health officials are going to get even more interesting. Apr. 15: Open and ready to serve

At a time when jobs are being shed faster than the coronavirus is spreading, there’s news the world’s wealthiest man has just become richer — in large part because of the pandemic. Jeff Bezos is US$24 billion richer. His company, Amazon, is reaping the benefits of the lockdown in which consumers are turning to his online shopping juggernaut in increasing numbers. But my message today is not intended to bash Bezos or his business model; instead, I want to ask: what can we all do to ensure firms in our community aren’t left out in the COVID-19 cold while Amazon’s stock gets even hotter? It would be one thing if Bezos had chosen Winnipeg as the home for Amazon’s second headquarters. But he didn’t. So our concern should be those who are still trying to do business here. They had served us before COVID-19, and we will need them to be operating whenever we get the all-clear. To help make that happen, we’ve set up a free registry of local firms that are still open and ready to serve. I would suggest you consider clicking your way to that registry because our community will be much better off if we help businesses where we live, and it looks like Bezos really doesn’t need any more of our help.

Apr. 16: Border blues

With U.S. President Donald Trump now talking up a possible easing of restrictions at the Canada-U.S. border, let’s take a look at what is happening just across the 49th parallel. Much like everyone in the Red River Valley, the flood watch is on. And like everyone else in the world, Manitoba and North Dakota are also trying to hold back the flood of COVID-19. Here in Manitoba, our positive case count increased by four on Thursday, so the provincial total now stands at 250. By contrast, the case count in North Dakota just set a new single-day high with 28 positives, pushing the state’s total to 393. As a point of reference, please note that North Dakota has a much smaller population than Manitoba. Here’s another pandemic point of reference familiar to many Manitobans who have been to the Fargodome for concerts and football games. On the outside, the facility is lit up at night in support for front-line workers, but on the inside, preparations are underway to turn it into a field hospital. What is normally the home of the NDSU championship football team is now standing by for a possible coronavirus surge, complete with 200 cots in orderly rows and boxes of medical supplies at the ready. For many Manitobans, North Dakota is a favourite weekend getaway destination. In my case, NDSU is where my son is studying and running track. I long for the day when we can again make a run for the border, but when a North Dakota football field is a field hospital, that border still seems like a bridge too far. Erratum: I wrongly listed the pandemic profiting for Jeff Bezos in Wednesday’s newsletter as only $24 million. In fact, the Amazon CEO is now $24 billion richer. Thanks to the readers who caught my typo, and in the process, helped strengthen my argument about the need to shop locally. (Editor’s note: The earlier briefing was corrected for this book.)

Apr. 17: A new number

There’s no denying the numbers are looking up here in Manitoba because they are now going down. At Friday’s update, there were no new cases of COVID-19 reported by provincial health officials. There were no additional deaths. Plus, the active caseload is now less than the total number of recovered cases. But there was a new number that came from a question our Carol Sanders asked of Dr. Brent Roussin — a number we should increasingly be keeping our eye on, especially as it relates to questions of when it will be safe to ease up on public health orders. For the first time, Manitoba’s chief public health officer talked about the trans- missibility of the virus in Manitoba, generally referred to as R-naught. In short, that key epidemiological metric indicates how many new cases will come from each person infected. Roussin said Manitoba has been dealing with an R-naught rate for the virus of 2.5. In other words, for every positive test in Manitoba, you could expect 2.5 others would be infected. Roussin made it clear the R-naught number we need to get to is less than one, as that’s the threshold when the case count will remain on a downward trajectory. While we wait for that magical R-naught number, you might want to listen to Ger- man Chancellor Angela Merkel explain how even a slight change in that contagion calculus can have huge implications. Don’t worry if you can’t speak German as there are subtitles. And if you were wondering why Germany is doing relatively well in the fight against COVID-19, consider the remarkable grasp of the virus Merkel has on display in this short briefing.

Apr. 18 and 19: Peak piques interest

So, I am making dinner for the family, enjoying a locally brewed beer to support the local economy while listening to my favourite podcast, NPR’s On the Media. And somewhere between my slicing tomatoes and frying onions, the expert being interviewed says something about pandemic that really piques my interest. “They all rise to a peak and then descend after the peak, and typically in real epidem- ics and in those curves, half of the transmission happens after the peak,” Dr. Joshua Epstein, an epidemiology professor at NYU’s School of Global Public Health, says as he breaks down disease models. “I think a lot of people are really misunderstanding what it means to be at the peak of the pandemic…Typically the peak of the epidemic is the midpoint of the epidemic. You are not out of the woods. You are in the very heart of the woods.” If I am honest, you would have to count me as one of those afflicted by that misunderstanding. We are all watching Manitoba’s curve and seeing a flattening of the positive case count. Sunday’s media release was another day when no new cases of COVID-19 were announced in the province. Plus, we’ve all heard Dr. Brent Roussin talk about the possibility of an easing of restrictions in the not-too-distant future. But the all-too-easy-to-ignore reality is the distance that remains to get out of the woods is roughly the same distance it took to get us to the heart of this pandemic, if that is where we are now. In other words: Manitoba’s pandemic began 39 days ago on March 12 with our first case, so we likely have at least another 39 days to go. More- over, the downside of the peak could mean we are on track for another 253 positive cases and five more deaths. Obviously, the only one who really knows how far Manitobans are into the woods and how long it will take to emerge is Dr. Roussin. But for the moment, he has yet to share with the public any of his models or forecasts for COVID’s curve.

Apr. 20: Transparency in Ontario

The good news today from the province just to the east of us was that Ontario has reached the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic earlier than expected. That means fewer people are dying in Canada’s most populous province than initially forecast, and — fingers crossed — the country could be through the worst of this by the end of the month. But within that ray of sunshine was also a level of transparency from the Ontario government we have yet to see in Manitoba. There were charts. There were graphs. There were data-driven explanations for the good, the bad and the ugly as part of Ontario’s pandemic narrative that totals 11,184 positive cases and 584 deaths. “The government believes the public deserves to have access to the same information as it receives in regular briefings,” reads the 18-page presentation that was part of today’s public health briefing. “Providing this information is key to ensuring continued transparency with the public about the challenges that Ontario faces in dealing with COVID-19 and where there has been progress in flattening the curve.” Meanwhile, we in Manitoba are left with daily case counts but little more. Members of the media have asked for the models guiding Manitoba’s COVID-19 response, but so far none have been provided. It’s likely there’s a good-news story here in Manitoba, too, much like the one revealed in Ontario. It’s a story told in graphs and charts that demonstrates just how big a difference social distancing, hand washing and staying at home is making. But in the 40 days since Manitoba’s first positive test was announced, it’s a story yet to be told to anyone outside of the provincial cabinet and those leading Manitoba’s public health response. Given all that has been asked of Manitobans to date, would it be too much to ask for the same level of transparency that Ontario is delivering to its citizens?

Apr. 21: Virtual vigils

In December, Manitobans were able to gather to grieve for RCMP Const. Allan Poapst who lost his life near the end of his shift in a head-on collision. The ability for the community to come together to pay their respects and to help each other heal was front page news in the last month we would know in a world without COVID-19. But in the age of the pandemic, the tried and true tributes of the past no longer apply for the front page news of the bloody rampage in Nova Scotia that took the life of Const. Heidi Stevenson, a 23-year veteran of the RCMP. In fact, our front page has struggled to give this tragedy the visual impact it deserves because the images we have access to are all taken from a distance. Where normally photographers would be able to focus on the emotion that would so readily be on display, there is instead two metres of separation. “COVID-19 is not going to pause because of our pain — we cannot let our guard down,’’ Dr. Robert Strang, Nova Scotia’s chief medical officer of health, said Monday as he administered the bitter pill that social distancing would need to be maintained in the aftermath of the mass killings. At a time when the country desperately needs to come together, we are instead left to make do with virtual vigils.

Apr. 22: Administer the truth

My wife introduced me to Thomas Friedman by way of his bestseller Longitudes and Attitudes: The World in the Age of Terrorism, which she gave me as a Christmas present years ago. But if you haven’t been introduced to the New York Times columnist before, let me reference a portion of his column that was part of my morning read. In the piece that talked about the exponential need for great leadership to combat the exponential threat of the COVID-19 crisis, Friedman talked to Dov Seidman, an American author, businessman and founder of the The How Institute for Society. As part of that discussion, Seidman noted how great leaders trust people with the truth. “Great leaders understand that when so many vulnerable and scared people are so willing, so quickly, to put their livelihoods and even their lives in their leaders’ hands, and make sacrifices asked of them, they expect the truth and nothing but the truth in return,” Seidman said. “Leaders who trust people with the truth are trusted more in return. But you better not betray my trust — by not telling me the truth — when I have literally put my life in your hands.” At no point in my nearly 32-year career at the Free Press have I been involved in journalism that literally is about life and death. What is consuming our newsroom on a daily basis is unlike anything we could have ever imagined. Should we wear masks? Does Manitoba have enough ventilators? Will health-care workers have all the masks they need to protect themselves? Is our testing capacity up to speed? Are our nursing homes at risk? And when will it be safe to reopen the economy? Those are all questions that deserve answers that we can trust to be accurate and true. But as I write this, I have to confide that our reporters are not always getting answers that are as truthful as they should be from our leaders, who continue to ask much of all of us in the fight against the pandemic. “In my view, trust is the only legal performance-enhancing drug,” Seidman said. “Whenever there is more trust in a company, country or community, good things happen.” A vaccine for COVID-19 is still months or even a year away, but in the meantime, let’s hope that our leaders are willing to trust us enough to administer the truth.

Apr. 23: Here’s to more spilled ink

A lot has happened in the nearly 40 days since we launched this daily briefing note. While there have been glimmers of hope and stories of goodwill, much of the news has been bad. As we now know all too well, that’s what happens in a deadly pandemic with no known cure or vaccine. But on a personal note, the remarkable support from those on the mailing list of this newsletter — which goes out to 100,000 readers nightly — is something that has made the heavy lifting of non-stop COVID coverage easier to shoulder for us here at the Free Press. Not a day has gone by without one of you sending a note to express appreciation for my musings at the top and the wealth of information that extends all the way to the bottom of this briefing. I’ve done my best to respond to every email, letter and phone call. But today, I am going to do one better by sharing a video that expresses our commitment to you during this crisis and our appreciation for the readers who make our work possible. Watch the video here. We tasked award-winning columnist Melissa Martin to reflect on our role in these trying times, which led her to write a love letter to newspapers and all of their readers. Here’s a taste of what Melissa wrote in that column: “At the Free Press, we voted to take a pay cut, knowing the pain that has rocked so many Canadians would not leave us unscathed. Yet we stand among the lucky, both on the media landscape and the pandemic one as a whole. We still have our jobs. Our work, and all the joy and the pain and the gravity it holds, goes on. “And we are lucky because after 148 years telling Manitoba’s stories, we have you. We have our readers, and the place this independently owned newspaper has carved out in the community. The Free Press has been bruised by the economic quakes of the 21st century, and now by a global emergency, but we are still spilling ink.” So here’s to more spilled ink. And of course, to you, the reader.

Apr. 24: Flood fears fade

My commute to work includes a gentle meander through Assiniboine Park, a deliber- ate bit of navigation that slows things down for me regardless of how frenetic things are at the Free Press. When life moves at a slower speed, certain things come into view. Today, I could tell the Assiniboine River was just a little bit lower than it was on Thursday as the water- marks on the oaks lining the banks revealed the welcome downward trend. I’ve decided to talk about river levels today because it wasn’t long ago that provincial forecasts had us on notice for major flooding. The dump of snow we had last fall created abnormally high levels of soil moisture, triggering fears of what we would face this spring. Fortunately, the range of flooding forecasts shared with the public over the past few months landed on a situation akin to the best-case scenario. In other words, I can safely shelve the front page headline reading: PANDEMIC HELL AND HIGH WATER. We’ve talked about forecasts, models and peaks a lot this week; in fact, we are ending the week with an editorial calling for the province to trust the public with the pandemic models guiding Manitoba’s response. But this weekend, there’s a forecast that says we are in the midst of the warmest run of days since the Thanksgiving blizzard. It’s been a long time coming. It’s what we all need. Please ensure you enjoy it in a way that keeps flattening the curve.

Apr. 25 and 26: Analysing the risks

The Saturday night scene in our family room revolved around the board game Risk. All five of us spread out on the floor, counting out our armies and plotting global domination. Metaphor alert: I couldn’t help but think about the risks at play in the pandemic as we took turns rolling the dice to determine which nations would rise and fall on the game board. We are all now living in a world of elevated risk. Do we go out or stay in? Am I better off wearing a mask? What’s the long-term damage to aging parents left to cope in isolation? When should restrictions be eased so the economy can start up again? What about a second wave? Should I follow the U.S. president’s prescription of ingesting disinfectants? In all cases but the last one, there’s going to be an element of rolling the dice no matter the answer. And in the case of Donald Trump’s medical musings, please take the advice of Mayor Brian Bowman who had a surreal moment at Friday’s city hall briefing as he found himself warning about the risks of off-label disinfectant use. But let’s introduce one more element of risk into the equation guiding the transition to a post-pandemic world: what if those in charge have misdiagnosed the problem? A new paper from the Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Centre warns of the perils of having prescription precede diagnosis. “While respecting the extraordinary efforts the public health professionals and medical community are now doing in the midst of the fight, we nonetheless need to begin by recognizing that they may have fundamentally misdiagnosed the challenge coronavirus poses to our society,” Graham Allison wrote. Allison’s point is that history, especially in the cases of novel threats, is filled with examples where those in charge failed to understand what had hit and then misdiagnosed the challenge with tragic consequences. His solution? “We recommend radically widening the debate — far beyond the public health professionals and policymakers now driving the Trump administration’s choices. Both in developing a more accurate diagnosis of the challenge coronavirus poses to our nation, and in identifying options for what comes after the current shut down, we need the best minds from every arena in the nation in which professionals have developed expertise in analyzing novel risks wrapped in uncertainties. In particular, skilled intelligence analysts, financial wizards, and historians should join the fray.’’ We all know it is going to take more than Lysol to move past the pandemic. But as we all weigh the risks, let’s hope too that the lessons of the past are helping guide the future to be built because what’s at stake is anything but a board game. Apr. 27: Excess deaths

We begin this week’s installment of your COVID-19 briefing with another example of the half-life of any attempt to quantify this pandemic. In my intro for the March 31 edition of the newsletter, I noted the death toll from the virus in the United States had surpassed the fatality count from the 9/11 terrorist attacks. At the time, I thought drawing on that historical marker would help bring some perspective by referencing the 3,400 who perished on Sept. 11, 2001. Now, not even a month later, more than 50,000 people have died from the coronavirus in the United States. But what if my reference point wasn’t the only thing with a limited shelf-life? What if the death toll on March 31 was already out of date? That appears to be the case as The Washington Post today revealed that U.S. deaths soared in the early weeks of the pandemic, far exceeding the number attributed to COVID-19. The Washington Post’s investigation started with federal data that show the number of deaths that would normally have occurred through March and up to April 4. It then examined the “excess deaths” for the period in question against the number of deaths officially attributed to COVID-19 nationally and for each state. The number crunching found a higher mortality rate for the virus than was on the public record. “In the early weeks of the coronavirus epidemic, the United States recorded an estimated 15,400 excess deaths, nearly two times as many as were publicly attributed to COVID-19 at the time,” is how the Washington Post begins today’s report. As the newspaper goes on to note, the failure to capture the full impact of the pandemic came at a time policymakers were making critical decisions about how to stem the pandemic. “It’s really important to get the right numbers to inform policymakers so they can understand how the epidemic is evolving and how severe it is in different places,” said Daniel Weinberger, a Yale professor of epidemiology who led the research team for the investigation. And to think that for much of the time in question many U.S. policymakers were still downplaying the impact of COVID-19 by likening it to the seasonal flu.

Apr. 28: Industry in intensive care

At one level, Postmedia is one of our competitors for both eyeballs and advertising dollars. But at another level — especially in the midst of a pandemic — anyone in the newspaper business trying to serve their community is a fellow soldier. That’s why there was no joy in our newsroom today with the news broke that several Postmedia papers in rural Manitoba are closing their doors. How much of this business decision was hastened by COVID-19 is something only Postmedia executives can answer, but my associate editor Stacey Thidrickson has an answer for what the loss of these papers means because she got her start in journalism at one of those rural titles now putting out its last edition. Of course, COVID-19 isn’t just hurting small-town weeklies. It’s also impacting the bottom line of the country’s major dailies, including the Free Press. As our publisher Bob Cox puts it, the coronavirus has essentially put the entire industry into intensive care. But unlike the virus, there is a cure for what is ailing newspapers. It essentially involves an infusion of cash from Facebook and Google to properly compensate newspapers for their content the platforms use to generate eyeballs — and get rich. It’s a treatment that has been fast-tracked in Australia because of the pandemic, and it’s one our publisher is calling on Ottawa to administer here. “In the COVID-19 crisis, news publishers across the country have proven once again just how important their performance is to informing Canadians. It’s time for the federal government to push Facebook and Google to provide real support for our newsrooms so they can keep doing this vital task,’’ writes Cox, who is also the chair of News Media Canada.

Apr. 29: Tracking traffic

This was an observation I was more than prepared to make in the absence of any hard data. And if I am really honest, it’s an observation that anyone behind the wheel of a car in Winnipeg over the past six weeks could have made, too. So let’s skip the drum roll and state the obvious: as Manitoba’s COVID case count rose, the number of vehicles on the road fell. In fact, our roads became one of the easiest places to social distance as there was frequently little in the way of anyone else sharing the space. But then I tripped over some stats that showed exactly how far congestion had fallen since Manitoba recorded its first positive case of the virus. The drop in congestion has been quantified thanks to an international local technology company by the name of TomTom that has been tracking traffic data for more than a decade. For instance, during the week beginning March 14 when we were facing nothing but fear and uncertainty, traffic levels fell to 64 per cent of normal. Even today, my morning drive featured about 50 per cent less traffic than what I experienced pre-pandemic. In other words, the rationale for the rebates coming from Manitoba Public Insurance are laid out in easy to understand graphs that demonstrate why accident claims have fallen. Similarly, those graphs help explain why the laws of supply and demand have led to rock-bottom gas prices. TomTom’s tracking is also a roadmap to what’s coming now that Manitoba is starting to dial back COVID-19 restrictions. When you look at the data for Wuhan, the first major city hit by the virus, you see what a three-month lockdown did to congestion in that Chinese city. But the laws of traffic also mean that what goes down eventually comes back up when a lockdown is lifted, so Wuhan drivers are now experiencing a rise in congestion. Eventually, traffic on our streets will return to something approximating pre-pandemic patterns, and I’m guessing that’s a burden most of us will happily bear in exchange for a return to whatever becomes our new normal. But if you do find yourself swearing at some traffic jam in the not too distant future, please remember that TomTom’s data shows Winnipeg ranks 247th in its worldwide ranking of traffic congestion.

Apr. 30: Swedish idea stinks

My grandfather only drove Volvos. And since my grandfather was also generous, every time he upgraded to a new model, my brother and I had the benefit of another hand-me-down boxy but good Volvo. My grandfather was also a farmer, which means he knew the value of manure. So today’s newsletter intro is going to somehow make a link between a Swedish tradition of making safe cars and a Swedish innovation to keep a city safe during the pandemic. Since a Volvo engineer invented the three-point safety belt, I’d suggest you buckle up first. Tonight, Swedes will be celebrating Walpurgis, a festival that marks the end of winter. In normal times, the feast day involve songs, bonfires and spontaneous parties attended by tens of thousands of people. But these are no longer normal times, even in boxy but safe Sweden. So the Swedish solution to ensure social distancing at tonight’s Walpurgis in the university town of Lund is to dump a tonne of chicken manure in its central park to deter revellers. “We don’t want to become an epicentre for coronavirus, so we are doing what we can to fertilize the lawn and keep people safe,” Philip Sandberg, the city’s mayor, told CNN. “It has been proven that parks can carry a severe risk to coronavirus with the amount of people gathering in them, so this is an important measure for us to take. “It will stink of chicken manure and won’t be pleasant for people to be around, but the chicken has a lot of phosphorus and nitrogen in it, so the park will be nice just in time for the summer.” I have no idea how this idea that clearly stinks worked in Lund tonight. I also don’t know if we should import this Swedish model to ensure social distancing at Assinibo- ine Park. But after an April that was pretty crappy for everyone, I figured you wouldn’t mind a whiff of something completely different on the pandemic front. Here’s to a May that will be safer and healthier for all. Friday, May 1: Empty streets

At the height of the Spanish pandemic a century ago, Sigmund Freud published an essay entitled The Uncanny. What the father of psychoanalysis meant by “the uncanny” was the sensation evoked by something familiar suddenly becoming strange. For instance, walking through the streets of a metropolis and not seeing another soul. “The uncanny is that class of the terrifying which leads back to something long known to us, once very familiar,” Freud wrote. I’m no student of Freud, but I am a fan of Ryan Thorpe who draws on the writing of the Austrian intellectual in our 49.8 cover story headlined One Surreal City. Ryan’s assignment was to document Winnipeg’s strangely lifeless downtown now so disorienting in an uncanny way for anyone who leaves their COVID cocoon. “It is still Winnipeg. It is still our home,” Ryan writes in his feature that drives home how a pandemic spreads confusion on every corner.

MIKE DEAL / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Since the coronavirus hit Winnipeg, its downtown became an area that saw very little traffic.

“It is still the city we know and love, but it feels different, off. The texture isn’t right. And that’s because the people are gone — locked away, out of sight, shut indoors — and it’s the people, most of all, that make a city what it is.” Where the streets have no people, the easing of the lockdown on Monday will lead to more signs of life downtown. But we thought it important to ensure there was a record of what descended over the heart of our city for the past several weeks. May 2 and 3: Lessons from Venice The Venetians had a farsighted strategy to contain the spread of the Black Death devastating Europe in the 14th century. All ships arriving from infected ports were required to be anchored in isolation for 40 days before being allowed ashore in the lagoon city of Venice. The practice we all now know as quarantine comes from the Italian words quaranta giorni, meaning 40 days. While our public health orders haven’t involved a quarantine, we’ve had a taste of the isolation critical to the success of the practice. Much like the Venetians of the Middle Ages who put their faith in the idea so the city’s institutions could regain social control and restore health, we’ve put aside immediate benefits in order to secure a collective benefit in the future. In theory, that future benefit comes into play on Monday as a loosening of restrictions begins in Manitoba. While I have no idea if Premier Brian Pallister has looked to the long-ago lessons of quarantine in Venice, I will simply note for the record that his announcement of Manitoba’s reopening plan came exactly 40 days after the first public health order of the pandemic was issued in the province. May the fourth be with you!

May 4: Master of his domain

I’m not sure if this is my COVID coping mechanism, but a clear pattern of behaviour has emerged at the end of the work day. I come home. I wash my hands. I reassure my wife that I have washed my hands. And then, I tune into Seinfeld. It doesn’t matter that I have seen pretty much every episode more than once. In fact, there’s nothing better than seeing one of my favourites again. Actually, the one thing better is landing on a scene I hadn’t seen before, or somehow forgotten. Let the record show that Seinfeld isn’t the only thing I do when I get home. I still love to cook dinner. There are workouts in the basement and runs along the Harte Trail. And where I can, I try to help with my daughter’s homework. But as much as Seinfeld is filling the void left by the absence of NHL hockey, there’s got to be more to my new pandemic viewing habit. Maybe, something medicinal. I’ll leave it to Jerry Seinfeld to explain since the New Yorker has also had to adjust to life in quarantine. “Humour is of the greatest value in times like these,” Seinfeld told NPR as he talked about his new standup special 23 Hours to Kill, which starts streaming on Netflix Tuesday. “Humour is an essential survival quantity, I think, of human life. I mean, I’ve been seeing some stuff about these nurses and medical professionals and these horrible units where they’re losing people so regularly. And I heard this one nurse say, she said, ‘You cry for a while and then you tell jokes.’ And that seems like the most human you can be.” I think the guy who made a show about nothing is on to something.

May 5: Information gap

If you want to know how seriously Sobeys is taking transparency during the pandemic, all you need to do is click your way to a COVID-19 case count the national grocery chain maintains on its website. There for anyone to see is a province-by-province breakdown disclosing the date of any positive tests involving its staff, including when they last worked and the location of the store. In the case of Manitoba, there are no reported cases involving its employees currently listed on the website. I mention Sobeys’ commitment to transparency because the grocery chain seems to be doing a better job of serving the public in that regard than those running Manito- ba’s pandemic response. This daily briefing has previously questioned why Manitoba took so long to release the projections guiding its fight against the coronavirus. Our front page story today raised concerns about why the province is keeping COVID-19 data on Indigenous people secret. And now we have learned that further details of a small cluster of cases at an undisclosed workplace in Western Manitoba will also be kept from the public. The only assurance Dr. Brent Roussin offered was that the five positive tests did not involve a workplace connected to health care. “The investigation shows it is not putting members of the public at risk,” Manitoba’s chief public health officer told reporters on Tuesday. Of course, we all hope that is the case, but I am sure the workers at Cargill’s meat-packing plant in Alberta were hopeful, too, that their workplace was not one that would put people at risk. Alas, that facility is now the site of Canada’s largest single outbreak of COVID-19. And given the experience of Cargill, I think we might all breathe a little easier when hearing of a workplace COVID-19 cluster if the province saw fit to be as open with us as Sobeys is with its customers.

May 6: A day in the life Today was not a normal day in our newsroom. As we have done every day since the pandemic slipped into the province on March 12, we were running flat out to keep up with the news grind that is all COVID all the time. But we added another challenge to the newsroom by assembling a team of 30 journalists and giving them the daunting assignment to document a day in the life of ourC M Y cityK PAGE Z1in the midst of the coronavirus.

SATURDAY, MAY 9, 2020 Beginning at the 0 stroke of midnight, we had reporters out on

the street to capture ▼ F1 an hour-by-hour ac- 49ATTITUDE AT 8LATITUDE count of what we are all facing and how we are responding. At the top of each hour, we moved to the next story. We will keep at it until the clock strikes midnight again. We will then have less than 48 hours for our team of editors to sort through the interviews and hundreds of photographs to deliver the package COVID that will debut online in Friday’s Above the Fold and on the front page of Saturday’s print edition. This special project is one we hope will stand the test of time and again demonstrate the value of our journalism in this ex- 30 journalists, 24 hours and the story of our lifetime / F2-13 traordinary moment in our city’s nearly 150-year history. I look forward to sharing it with you.

F_01_May-09-20_PP_01.indd F1 2020-05-07 6:03 PM May 7: A prescription for learning

Dr. Frank Rasler began his medical career in the early 1980s as AIDS emerged as a global viral threat. And now with retirement looming, the Winnipeg-born doctor and University of Man- itoba graduate finds himself on the front lines of the fight against a global pandemic for which there is yet no cure. But Rasler’s front line is in Atlanta as an ER doc in a state that has seen 1,340 deaths from its 31,509 cases of COVID-19. In a note he sent me after last night’s COVID update, Rasler talked about moving to Georgia to escape our winters and work at the Centres for Disease Control. He ref- erenced seeing the corona-crisis face-to-face, the deaths it caused and the fear being spread. But he also talked about the opportunity for us to learn from the experience, a message of hope that comes with a prescription based on 40 years in the health-care system. “When I leave the ER and return to the relative safety of my home and family, I have time to think about something hopeful, something good or useful that can come from this,’’ Rasler wrote, referencing a speech delivered earlier in the pandemic. “I don’t mean, what will society learn from this, or how we can handle it better next time. I want to advise specific, positive actions our new stay-at-home society can take now to give a lasting benefit and also confront the feeling of hopelessness against the Corona pandemic, instead of just waiting for it to end. “Everyone should use this abrupt mortality awareness as a huge motivator. Consider where to make major changes in your personal health-risk behaviours — bad health habits — things you know you should change. The main causes of future disease, depression and premature death are lifestyle behaviours that are under your control. Preventable diseases such as stroke, heart attacks, many cancers, back pain, sub- stance abuse and addiction behaviours result from unhealthy choices we make every day.” I asked Rasler if he wouldn’t mind my sharing his healthy advice with readers of this newsletter. And, of course, he said yes. But before saying yes, he made clear he is still keeping an eye on the health of his birthplace with this signoff: “Thanks, and happy to see Manitoba’s continued Covid improvement.”

May 8: Snapshot of the times

There is no specific training in journalism school for covering an all-consuming global pandemic. And neither I nor any of my staff ever imagined something on the scale of COVID-19 when we joined the Free Press. But for the past eight weeks since the coronavirus slipped into Manitoba, this has been the story of our lifetime. It’s also been a story that’s served as a rallying cry for the value of newspaper journalism. News you can trust — especially information that only a local paper can provide — has literally become a matter of life or death. As part of our coverage of the story of our lives, we wanted to document a day in the life of our city to demonstrate our commitment to readers, but also the capacity and capability of our newsroom. For 24 consecutive hours on May 6, our team of reporters and photographers were on assignment, chronicling the people and the places of the pandemic. These vignettes come from all corners of our community — from before sunrise to well after sunset. There’s the openness of the Salvation Army’s Centre of Hope to those that spill in off the street at 1 a.m. There’s the attention to detail as a daycare is sterilized before parents drop off their kids at 7 a.m. There’s the necessary monotony for health-care workers being screened before they can return to a hospital’s front lines at 2 p.m. And there’s the breaking of Ramadan’s fast just after sunset for a woman still grieving the loss of her father from COVID-19 in Pakistan.

JOHN WOODS / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Urooj Danish and her family break their Ramadan fast with prayers and an iftar meal at sundown in her home earlier this year. What each hourly snapshot adds up to is a portrait that serves as a record of this historic time in the life of a city and its people. It’s a depiction that gets behind the masks many are now wearing to see what we are all facing together. And it’s an account from a newsroom determined to prove every day that this is exactly why we got into journalism.

May 9 and 10: Thanks mom!

Let’s start by stating the obvious: This is a Mother’s Day unlike any other. There will be no fancy brunches in fine restaurants. There really shouldn’t be any large family gatherings to celebrate the matriarch. And in many cases, the best that can be done is a glimpse of mom through a nursing home window, or a virtual hug. At our home, we are fortunate as all three of our brood are under our roof with their mother. While that might have seemed like a curse for some of the pandemic lockdown, it did mean she was served breakfast in bed this morning and surprised with gifts that showed our family’s appreciation for her. For my own mother, I was able to social distance my way through Shelmerdine to get her something special that will be blooming long after I’ve dropped it off at her home in St. James. On this day, we celebrate the unconditional love that has the power to get us through the tough times. For many, it’s mothers near and far on the front lines of our lives. For others, it’s the memory of mom or the stepmoms, grandmothers, aunts, and other women who nurture and support us. While this Mother’s Day was different, I hope you still found a way to celebrate the special women in your life. In the meantime, here’s a “locktail hour” toast to mothers everywhere: To the original essential workers, a world of thanks!

May 11: Keep calm and tulip on

We lived in Ottawa for 10 years during my time as the Free Press parliamentary bureau chief. During that decade, two of our three children were born in Ottawa’s Civic Hospital, the same institution where Crown Princess Juliana brought Princess Margriet into this world while the Dutch Royal family took refuge in Canada during the Second World War. I didn’t know that part of Canada-Dutch history when my dear wife went into labour, but our maternity ward nurse was full of interesting trivia, including the fact Canada temporarily disclaimed territorial rights to the hospital’s maternity suite so the royal baby could be solely Dutch. At that point, my wife suggested I pay more attention to what was going on with her contractions than a lesson in the hospital’s royal history dating back to 1943. However, our Dutch connection, as tenuous as it may be, was further strengthened by what soon became my favourite time of year in the national capital — the Tulip Festival. Again, thanks to the Dutch royal family’s post-war gift of tulip bulbs, Ottawa blooms in a way that takes your breath away each May as one million tulips of 100 varieties spring to life. We were fortunate that we could easily walk to the flower beds outside the Civic Hospital and nearby Dow’s Lake to take pictures each year of our children tip-toeing their way through tulips. But that annual rite enjoyed by hundreds of thousands almost didn’t happen this year as the National Capital Commission declared there would be no stopping to take pictures of the tulips because of COVID-19. Yes, you read that right. The signs went up. The warnings were issued. And a major opportunity to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the end of Nazi occupation of the Netherlands, complete with a special liberation orange bulb sent to Canada by Princess Margriet for the occasion, was uprooted. Fortunately, that dictate was nipped in the bud as the festival officially started. “Dear all: our bad!” began the tweet from the National Capital Commission announcing the reversal. “Feel free to snap a photo as you walk by, while social distancing.” Fittingly, the twitter feed of the Canadian Tulip Festival seems to have things in perspective this pandemic with this slogan: Keep Calm and Tulip On.

May 12: Taking the temperature

The science is pretty clear that the return of warm weather will not solve the pandemic that is COVID-19. At best, some heat and sunshine might slow the transmission of the coronavirus. At least, that’s the latest thinking behind the fact a much warmer California has fared far better on almost every measure of the virus compared to the much colder New York. “For every increase in heat of one degree Celsius, we are seeing about two per cent decline in transmission,” public-health expert Ali Mokdad, the chief strategy officer for population health at the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, told ABC News this week. “We find this relationship in our data, and possibly it would be more when the weather warms up this month.” We all know we’ve had little in the way of warm weather here to test that theory, but what are the chances the unseasonable cold we’ve experienced here in Manitoba has somehow helped keep the curve flat? Since May 4 when the first phase of the reopening of the province began, we’ve had only one day where the daily high temperature hit the long-term average. The rest of this critical period in the fight against the pandemic has been highlighted by record lows, and in some cases, snow. Take, for instance, the mercury on Monday. According to the website Rob’s Obs, run by a retired Environment Canada meteorologist who operates a weather station in Charleswood, a new record low was set Monday when the mercury dropped to -10.3 C. The previous low for May 11 was -9.4 C in 1946. On May 8, there was another record low recorded in Winnipeg of -7.3 C. The icing on the cake, so to speak, came on the weekend when up to 12 centimetres of snow fell in Brandon. While patios may be legally able to open, there has been little in the way of temperatures conducive to having drinks outside. In other words, most of us have found little reason to warm to activities now allowed that might put social distancing at risk. They say you can’t fight Mother Nature, but in the case of the May we’ve been enduring, she may have been doing us all a healthy favour.

May 13: Learning a new way

There was a discussion in our newsroom (that now seems like a lifetime ago) about how long COVID-19 might last. Were we talking about a matter of weeks? Could this really go on for months? And when might things return to whatever the new normal might be? Granted, that was a discussion in mid-March, but as we approach mid-May, it’s pretty clear we ain’t anywhere near a new normal yet. The latest sign came Wednesday afternoon as the University of Manitoba announced it will not be a return to learning as normal in the fall term. Instead, the province’s largest post-secondary institution and a major driver of the Manitoba economy will be relying on more remote learning. “From the outset of (the COVID-19 pandemic), we said our commitment first and foremost is to our community’s health and safety. We will have a return to campus when the time is right, but right now, we want to stay in line with public health advice,” said John Kearsey, the U of M’s vice-president external. The U of M is not alone. Other major Canadian universities such as McGill and UBC have already announced there won’t be on-campus instruction for the fall semester, and south of the border, California State University — the largest four-year public university system in the United States — announced this week that classes at its 23 campuses would be cancelled in favour of online learning in the fall. The lesson here? If the U of M, McGill, UBC and Cal State are not only places of higher learning but also trendsetters, then we are going to be waiting a lot longer for this to be over.

May 14: The new woo

We weren’t made to social distance. We all need to touch and be touched. But what happens when those needs, those key conduits of human interaction, are suddenly deemed to be risky behaviour in a pandemic? Apparently the answer is what our species has always done. We adapt. That’s part of the response Frances Koncan got when she was assigned a feature on courtship in the age of COVID. The new woo, as Frances found, may start on touch pads but doesn’t involve touching, for obvious reasons. “We’ve really just been going for walks the last six weeks,” Riva Billows explained to Frances about the challenges of dating from two metres apart. “We’ve been actively trying to be good and aware and comply with the social-distancing protocols, since we live in different households.

RUTH BONNEVILLE / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Isaac Tate (left) and Riva Billows kept their families safe by social distancing.

“It’s been tough. It’s definitely super different to not be able to kiss or hold the person you’re seeing, especially when we’ve gone through some big life events in the last few months.” You can read her piece here by swiping right… May 15: Long weekend rituals quashed

This Victoria Day long weekend has been a long time coming for reasons we know all too well. For the past nine weeks, our world has been lived at a social distance, punctuated by the obsessive washing of hands and nervous watching of COVID case counts. We’ve worried about our jobs, our friends and our family. And even though summer weather finally beckons, the pandemic’s public health orders stand in the way of the treasured rituals long associated with the holiday. Grand cottage openings? Big parties complete with fireworks? Bonfires and beer with the gang that are all part of May Two-Four indulgences? If we want to be COVID-safe, as Dr. Brent Roussin puts it, they all best be put aside for the time being. “Our message to the majority of Manitobans now is not ‘stay home,’ it’s ‘stay safe,’” Manitoba’s chief public health officer advised on the eve of the long weekend. So clearly, this will be a Victoria Day unlike any other. That’s what happens when celebrations are muted, when the allure of another day off from school means little to kids who haven’t been in class for weeks. But as we ease our way out of the lockdown in a way that has kept Manitoba’s curve flat, let’s remember some words of wisdom from Queen Victoria as we mark the holiday that bears her name: “We are not interested in the possibilities of defeat. They do not exist.” It’s not exactly a happy and glorious rallying cry, but here’s to you finding something that makes you happy and filled with glory this weekend. Our COVID briefing crew is getting an extra day off this weekend so we will be back in your inbox Monday evening.

May 18: A seismic threat

On this day 40 years ago, I was a sunburned Grade 9 student in the midst of a hot, dry Manitoba May about to experience a real life science experiment. While I’d seen the volcanoes of school science fairs, complete with ketchup magma, Mount St. Helens in far away Washington state was making clear the unforgiving power of the largest eruption in U.S. history. In short order, hundreds of square kilometres of the Pacific Northwest were reduced to a wasteland while an eruption column rose 24 kilometres into the sky. By May 20, the ash from that volcano had made its way to my city, severely reducing visibility in Winnipeg. I mention the anniversary of Mount St. Helens because of the links between that cata- strophic event and the one we are living through today. And those ties go well beyond the fact the first case of COVID-19 on our continent occurred in Washington. As Lawrence Roberts recalls of his time as a young reporter covering the buildup to the eruption, there was a similar struggle then to gauge the uncertain risks presented by nature amid tension between science, politics and economics. “The drama played out on a much smaller stage — one region of one state, instead of the whole planet — but many of the same elements were present: Scientists provided a range of educated guesses, and public officials split on how to respond. Business owners and residents chafed at the restrictions put in place, many flouted them, and a few even threatened armed rebellion,” Roberts writes in the New York Times. As Roberts notes, the government mostly heeded the analyses of geologists, so that when Mount St. Helens finally blew its top, the eruption killed only 57 instead of thousands. “At the first warning signs, state and federal officials moved to distance people from the mountain. They sought to block nonessential visitors from nearby Spirit Lake, ringed with scout camps and tourist lodges. Other than loggers, few people hung around the peak year-round, but the population surged in late spring and summer, when thousands hiked, camped and moved into vacation homes. Many regulars dismissed the risk. Slipping past roadblocks became a popular activity. Locals sold maps to sightseers and amateur photographers showed how to take old logging roads up the mountain. The owner of a nearby general store shared a common opinion of the threat: ‘It’s just plain bull. I lived here 26 years, and nothing like this happened before.’” Alas, you can’t ignore a seismic curve any more than that of a pandemic’s curve. If there is one more lesson from Mount St. Helens, it’s that life did eventually emerge again from the ash-filled mudflows in the shadow of what is still an active volcano. There are lush plants and trees. Fish fill the lakes. All creatures great and small call the area home. My hope is that we, too, will see a return to life after the eruption of COVID-19, even as the seismic threat of the coronavirus remains beneath the surface.

May 19: Surveillance data

Every day since March 12, we have waited and watched for the numbers. How many positive cases were being added to Manitoba’s COVID-19 count? How many had recovered? Would the death toll edge higher? And each day, without fail, we would get those numbers from Dr. Brent Roussin’s public health team. But there were far more numbers at Roussin’s fingertips than what was being released publicly, and today we finally have a better sense of the province’s pandemic picture thanks to a release of its surveillance data that comes complete with fancy graphs, colour-coded breakdowns and regional wraps. For instance, did you know that four of those who tested positive for the virus were pregnant? Or that contact tracing has been unable to figure out where 11.1 per cent of the case count contracted the virus? We all know the threat that health-care workers face, but did you know that in Manitoba, 12 nurses and nine doctors or physicians in training tested positive? Of course, none of us knew because none of this information had been shared with the public until now. If there is an upside to this latent effort at transparency, it’s that the province is now committed to publishing another update on May 25. As always, the Free Press will be waiting and watching.

May 20: PM dons a mask

I’m not sure if masks will again be another flashpoint in Canada-U.S. relations, but there’s no concealing the latest difference between the country’s prime minister and his counterpart in the White House. Justin Trudeau is now a masked man. Donald Trump, on the other hand, has a thinly veiled contempt for any suggestion he should wear the protective covering now required of all West Wing staff. In the case of Trudeau, this latest accessory will be in place whenever he feels he can’t stay two metres away from others outside his home. And as he strode into Par- liament Hill’s Centre Block today, Trudeau made a statement without uttering a word by wearing the mask while surrounded by a security detail whose faces remained uncovered. Meanwhile, Trump is facing a potentially difficult situation as he is supposed to visit a Ford plant in Michigan on Thursday. The Ford plant requires everyone to wear a mask. The differences between Trudeau and Trump were as starkly unmasked last month when the U.S. president tried to halt the export of N-95 masks into Canada. I decided to focus on masks in today’s newsletter intro because of how far the discussion about non-medical protective face coverings has come in little more than two months. Where once we were being told there was no reason to wear one, now Canada’s chief public health officer is officially recommending they be worn as an additional protective measure. “If you can’t predict whether you will be able to maintain that two metre distance, then it is recommended that you wear the non-medical mask or facial covering,” Dr. Theresa Tam announced Wednesday. There is no such recommendation here in Manitoba from Dr. Brent Roussin — at least, not yet. Which means the mask in my office will remain there instead of on my face. I’m not sure if that makes me more like Trump than Trudeau, but in the midst of a pandemic, it can sometimes be hard to figure out what is de rigueur and what isn’t.

May 21: Sunny forecast

The weather has been great of late. Our COVID numbers continue to trend in the right direction. And to top things off, the province today announced it is moving to have kids return to classrooms for an early school start before Labour Day. As a parent of a high school student who longs for an end to homeschooling, that is cause of celebration. As I am also married to an elementary teacher, the celebration might also be accompanied by the popping of a champagne cork. In other words, the forecast in Manitoba is suddenly a lot sunnier than it was during the earlier stages of the pandemic. That is not to say there won’t be risks with the reopening of schools as everything we do and don’t do these days carries risks. But for the moment, let’s feel good about the sunshine and our flattened curve. And speaking of sunshine and our curve, a new study from Harvard Universi- ty makes clear the arrival of summer heat should grant us a modest respite in the transmission rates of COVID-19. If we play our cards right and continue to social distance, wash our hands and use common sense, summer might be the time when things get flat-out better. But here’s the thing to watch, especially with our kids now on course to return to the classroom: as the temperatures cool in the fall, get ready for a rise in transmission rates. The Harvard study — based on one of the largest datasets of COVID-19 infection and weather — puts to bed any speculation that summer heat will save us from the coronavirus. By tracking weather and other environmental conditions such as pollution across 3,739 global locations, the study was able to present interactive figures to visu- alize the impact on the global spread of the virus from May 1, 2020 to April 30, 2021. As part of the research, a transmission forecast for Winnipeg is presented. What the tracking shows is a slight dip in the transmission rate here from May through to the planned start of school. But once August becomes September, the respite ends and transmission rates begin to edge upward. By the time the school year reaches February, the transmission rate will be much higher, making it harder to contain the spread of the virus. We obviously can’t control the weather, and it would be wrong to count on the weather to keep our students safe come fall, but aside from praying for an extended run of warm weather, I might just tuck away this Harvard study in case a certain high school student I know needs a cool science project when she is back in class.

May 22: Paying it forward

Throughout this pandemic, our newsroom has been my happy place and safe space. With much of our staff now working from home, maintaining social distance has never been a worry. That means I’ve been free to focus on the work at hand, the journalism that matters. That mission has helped me get through all of this. That mission has been both a beacon and a battery booster. And because of our raison d’etre — you, the reader — that mission has been remarkably rewarding. I want to again talk about our readers — those who check in daily via this newsletter, those who read us on their phones and those who pull us out of their mailbox each morning — because of what you have been sharing with us since we all began cohab- iting with COVID-19. It’s come in the emails, cards and handwritten letters that say thanks. It’s come from people stopping me in the street to let us know how much the Free Press means to them now. And in something I would have never predicted, it’s come in the form of cheques, both big and small, to help keep the Free Press strong. I even had one reader call as part of an effort he wanted to organize to have seniors donate their $200 cheques from the provincial government to our newsroom. I chuckled as I wondered what the premier would have thought of that gesture. While the Free Press is essentially operating as a not-for-profit in these trying times for newspapers everywhere, we are not a charity. And that means we have only been able to offer a thank you instead of a tax receipt for those donations. But we thought there might be something else we could do, something that would pay the generosity of our readers forward. So we have rolled out a new program that will allow us to channel the charity of readers toward those who currently can’t afford a Free Press subscription. Support journalism. Support your community. The easy to access link takes you to two buttons. The first is for those who are finan- cially able to offer their support. The second is for those who want to apply for a free subscription so they too can have access to the journalism they need and deserve. This is something new to us so please don’t hesitate to let me know what you think. In the meantime, here’s a thank you to those willing to donate in this way and a welcome to those eager to come aboard as all-access readers. May 23 and 24:

It’s the Memorial Day long weekend south of the border, a time when Americans pause, in theory, to honour those who died while serving in the military. Alas, this year’s holiday comes amid a war that sees Americans die every single day. The coronavirus has already claimed more American lives than the Vietnam War. Every three days, the body count grows by a number greater than the tally of U.S. soldiers who died on D-Day. As the grim total from the unrelenting take of the virus nears 100,000 U.S. deaths, the New York Times today marked the milestone with a front page filled with the names of the lives lost. No pictures. No stories. Just a dramatic statement framing the incalculable loss. But on this Memorial Day, there is no holiday from the infighting that plagues our southern neighbour. And that’s why an emotional plea made by North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum made headlines not only in the United States, but also abroad. His voice breaking and appearing close to tears at times, Burgum called for an end to a needless culture war over the wearing of protective masks during the pandemic. “I would really love to see in North Dakota that we could just skip this thing that other parts of the nation are going through, where they’re creating a divide. Either it’s ideological or political or something around mask versus no mask,” said Burgum, who has not ordered state residents to wear a mask while in public. “This is, I would say, a senseless dividing line and I would ask people to try to dial up your empathy and your understanding. If someone is wearing a mask, they’re not doing it to represent what political party they’re in or what candidates they support. “They might be doing it because they’ve got a five-year-old child who’s been going through cancer treatments. “They might have vulnerable adults in their life who currently have COVID and are fighting. “So again, I would just love to see our state, as part of being ‘North Dakota smart’, also be ‘North Dakota kind,’ ‘North Dakota empathetic,’ ‘North Dakota understanding,’ to do this thing. Because if somebody wants to wear a mask, there should be no mask shaming.” While I’ve included a link to the comments from the Republican governor — that came as the Republican in the White House was preparing to mark the holiday by golfing — I chose to quote much of what Burgum said because it bears repeating. While our much more populous province has lost only seven lives to the virus, North Dakota’s death toll is at 52 and its case count is almost 10 times that of Manitoba’s. The border between us has essentially been closed during the pandemic and likely will remain so until there is a significant improvement in flattening the curve across the United States. As I’ve mentioned here before, my son is a student at North Dakota State University in Fargo, so I’ve been watching North Dakota’s response to the pandemic more closely than most. But Burgum’s comments resonate well beyond those with personal connections to North Dakota. My hope is that North Dakota smart and North Dakota understanding spreads to the rest of the union. And soon, for all our sake.

May 25: Welcome to the jungle… gym

We went into the pandemic by plying our reporters to cover supermarket battles over rolls of toilet paper. But now that we’ve survived World War Loo, there are other fronts that have emerged in the age of COVID-19.

MIKAELA MACKENZIE / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Paul Bilodeau built his family an elaborate treehouse.

One of these is how parents are dealing with stir-crazy kids when playgrounds are either off limits or not recommended outlets, given fears the virus might linger on the surfaces of bars and structures. That was Alan Small’s assignment, and the piece he delivered found out that for many parents, the solution is a DIY welcome to the jungle… gym. Grabbing a hammer, nails and some lumber is apparently a much more affordable option than much pricier store-bought gyms that, according to one research company, have seen an 81 per cent increase in U.S. sales during April. I read Alan’s piece with interest because I remember how important playground slides, swings and monkey bars were when our three children were young. And if I had to deal with COVID-19 without that option as a parent with young kids, I’d be the one building a climbing wall in our yard so I could stop climbing the walls in our home.

May 26: Rock solid

My day usually starts with a quick debrief in the publisher’s office. I tell him what the newsroom is up to and about the stories we are chasing. I then brace for him to tell me about the typos, shortcomings or errors in judgment we made over the past 24 hours. But we occasionally do stray from the normal routine. In one recent departure, our publisher showed me a picture of himself shouldering a small boulder. His marathon shirt read Hell and Back. Oh, and he was smiling in the photograph. Given the state of our industry and the role a publisher plays at a newspaper, I believed for a moment that rather than working for Bob Cox all these years, I had in fact been toiling for Sisyphus. Much like the absurd hero from Greek mythology, Bob has spent the past decade trying to roll a huge stone up a hill, only to have it roll back down again. We began 2020 with the belief that the Free Press had finally turned the corner after years of struggle. It almost seemed that after 12 years as publisher, Bob had got the rock to the top of the mount. And then COVID-19 hit and we were in danger of hitting rock bottom. Of course, the still smiling publisher sees the photograph differently, as he explains in a column we are running in Wednesday’s print edition. Truth be told, the man holding the 20-kilogram stone had just completed a Crossfit challenge that involved carrying it for one mile. In Bob’s case, he completed the task in a little over 13 minutes. Upon completion, he marked it with his initials and then passed it on to another member of his Crossfit club. As Bob explains, rocks aren’t exactly new media. In fact, they might be considered the oldest way of recording a message and passing it on. “You could see this as a metaphor — our bond is rock solid, the rock is our foundation,’’ Bob writes of his challenge. “You could look at the stone as a talisman with magical powers that brings good luck. Maybe it is all of this. But for me the charm was in its simplicity, communicating with the most basic of tools. People have found a lot of ways to maintain their connections during the COVID-19 pandemic. Sometimes, passing along the simplest message in the simplest way works best.” Sisyphus never had to flatten a curve, but I think he might just be smiling at his newspaper doppelganger. May 27: Assessing risks

So, Manitoba is now heading into Phase 2 of its reopening plan. That means more freedom, more commerce, and of course, more risk. Obviously, risk is part of the new normal in the midst of a global pandemic. But how willing are we to tolerate risk? And how do we make those risk assessments? For instance, the province’s largest university has determined that fully reopening classes in the fall is a risk not worth taking. The University of Manitoba’s decision mirrors those made by other major post-secondary institutions across the country. But in South Bend, Ind., a leading U.S. university has decided on a different course of action, one it believes is well worth the risk. As of Aug. 10, the University of Notre Dame is not only welcoming students back to campus for the fall semester, it is starting two weeks early because of COVID-19. And the rationale the home of the Fighting Irish is using to justify this risk is an interesting one. “We are in our society regularly willing to take on ourselves or impose on others risks — even lethal risks — for the good of society,” the Rev. John I Jenkins, Notre Dame’s president, explained Tuesday in a column for the New York Times. “We send off young men and women to war to defend the security of our nation knowing that many will not return. We applaud medical professionals who risk their health to provide care to the sick and suffering. We each accept the risk of a fatal traffic accident when we get in our car. “The pivotal question for us individually and as a society is not whether we should take risks, but what risks are acceptable and why. Disagreements among us on that question are deep and vigorous, but I’d hope for wide agreement that the education of young people — the future leaders of our society — is worth risking a good deal.” In the case of Notre Dame, the COVID-19 risks it is facing are far greater than anyone in Manitoba has to ponder. COVID tracking counts show 1,227 positive cases and 39 deaths in the county where the prestigious Catholic university is located. And for some perspective, consider that St. Joseph County only has a population of 271,000. While Jenkins insists Notre Dame is making use of the best public health advice available, he also argues insights beyond those offered by science have to be part of the risk equation. “In our classical, humanistic educations, both Dr. Fauci and I came across the texts of Aristotle, who defined courage not as simple fearlessness, but as the mean between a rashness that is heedless of danger and a timidity that is paralyzed by it. To possess the virtue of courage is to be able to choose the proper mean between these extremes — to know what risks are worth taking, and why.” For the time being, Notre Dame is an outlier as others are not prepared to follow Jen- kins down a path he says is guided by courage and practical wisdom. But it’s an interesting equation to ponder as of June 1 when Manitobans can muster up the courage to go bowling, have a tattoo or head to a tanning salon.

May 28: An uplift

I’m going to do something counterintuitive in the intro to today’s COVID briefing by talking about non-COVID news. And the reason for going down a side road instead of the well-travelled coronavirus corridor is that the last few months have been pretty exhausting. A recent Pew Research study found that the constant churn of viral news has taken an emotional toll on the public. According to Pew, 71 per cent of Americans last month said they felt the need to take breaks from news. At the same time, 43 per cent said that keeping up with the news made them feel worse emotionally. Wendy Sawatzky, one of my associate editors who helps put together this newsletter, drew my attention to that survey as well as a suggestion that we ensure the news diet we are serving included some non-COVID news. So thanks to Wendy, we’ve made a change to the ingredients in another of our newsletters, Uplift. While the weekly summary of stories to lift your spirits has continued during the pandemic, the offerings inevitably touched on something virus-related. But this week’s edition is a COVID-free zone, as all the editions prepared by Kevin Rollason will be going forward. You can access our new improved Uplift here and sign up for it as well as any of our other free newsletters here.

And now, we return you to your regularly scheduled COVID-19 news...

May 29: Facts amid fears Over the past several months during this pandemic, many of you have taken the time to write to me to express your thanks for the journalism our newsroom has produced. I’ve done my best to share that appreciation with staff. And today, it’s time for my staff to return the favour by stepping out from behind their bylines to acknowledge that appreciation by sharing with you their experiences from the front lines of covering the pandemic. In a special feature we’ve headlined Facts Amid Fears, 12 members of our newsroom reflect on what it takes and what it means to deliver the essential service of journalism that matters now more than ever. The snapshots take you to the empty hallways of the Manitoba Legislative Building where Larry Kusch and Carol Sanders have been the only reporters on duty week after week at the seat of political power in the province. They touch on the personal challenge of laying out a paper remotely while waiting for the results of a COVID-19 test, as was the case for graphic artist Leesa Dahl. They reveal the tumult of cub reporter Julia-Simone Rutgers who had only just relocated from Halifax to join our newsroom before her life became all virus, all the time amid an apartment still filled with moving boxes. And in the case of Ryan Thorpe, there’s the willingness to put aside his own health concerns to pursue the pandemic plight of the homeless community. As Ryan writes: “When the pandemic hit, I was roughly eight months removed from an emergency surgery after my right lung spontaneously collapsed. Given my medical history, I was concerned I might be at elevated risk of complications, should I contract COVID-19. “But the story of how Winnipeg’s homeless community stared down the pandemic was too important to leave unreported. Their lives and their struggles, so often forgotten or ignored, matter. “And one of the best ways to demonstrate something matters is with our attention. We show we care by looking and listening, and — if we’re lucky — our work as reporters can force others to look and listen with us. “It felt like the least I could do.” To echo what Ryan wrote, sharing our stories with the readers who mean more us to now than ever, is the least we could do.

May 30 and 31: Helping hands

I’m not old enough to qualify for the $200 COVID-19 payment to seniors from the province. But Premier Brian Pallister’s pandemic-related payout did land on my desk in a round-about way last week. In this case, the $200 cheque was rerouted to the Free Press from one of our readers, who thought our newsroom was a more deserving recipient than himself. “Although not well off, I am not in dire straits — not now, anyway,” began the letter from the reader. “I am sending you my $200 so that you can use it however you see fit — and I mean that literally, from a thank-you treat for staff, to ink — I don’t care. You are deserving and you are smart enough to use my money wisely.” I mention this donation because it is one of many that have come our way in the week since we launched our Pay it Forward program to channel the charity of our readers to those who currently can’t afford a Free Press subscription. As of Friday, we’ve received over $3,000 in donations — more than enough to help us cover 50 subscriptions for those currently in need. But those pledges also came with words of encouragement that mean a lot to our newsroom: “Reliable journalism is essential to a functioning society. Congratulations to the Free Press for finding a way for more Winnipeggers and Manitobans to read real news by journalists.” “As a ‘Pegger newly returned to the motherland after 27 years away, I really appreciate the Free Press. An independent paper with a local focus is amazing. We cannot lose this and I don’t take it for granted.” “Thanks, Free Press, for being a constant presence in a crazy world. I look forward to my print copy every day and you have never let me down. And I consult your online info several times a day. I can’t imagine my world without you before, during or after the pandemic.” “I am very happy to read of this initiative to help those who cannot afford a subscription to the Free Press. I am a current digital subscriber and could not be happier with the quality of content. Thank you again to all the FP staff who have done very well keeping us so well informed, not just during this pandemic time, but year in and year out with quality journalism!” Those are but a small sample of the feedback we are getting from readers like you. I’ve said it before in these COVID-19 briefings, but it bears repeating: On behalf of the Free Press, thank you! Monday, June 1: Language of the unheard

If Martin Luther King Jr. were still with us, I’m sure he would be condemning the riots now raging across the United States. But he might also have pointed out the uprising in the week since George Floyd became another deadly statistic is precisely because no one has been listening for far too long. “I think America must see that riots do not develop out of thin air,” the civil rights leader said in a 53-year-old speech the centre that bears his name brought back to life this weekend by way of a video link it tweeted. “Certain conditions continue to exist in our society which must be condemned as vigorously as we condemn riots. But in the final analysis, a riot is the language of the unheard. And what is it that America has failed to hear?” King’s phrase “the language of the unheard” stuck with me because of the herd that appears immune from listening, from learning. They didn’t listen to King’s 1967 speech where he warned that the “nation’s summers of riots are caused by our nation’s winters of delay.” They didn’t listen when star quarterback Colin Kaepernick took a knee during the national anthems at NFL games to protest police brutality against Black people. And if President Donald Trump’s berating of governors on Monday is any indication, they won’t listen to the rising triggered by the deadly way a white police officer took a knee to the neck of a Black man in Minneapolis. These are not easy times for the tinderbox that lies on our southern border. Already ravaged by a pandemic that has sown death and economic despair, the country is now reeling from the racial ricochet on its streets. And those that can tell the truth of what is happening on its streets — the media the president has branded as “the enemy of the people” — are now being fired upon by police. King’s 1967 speech The Other America promised that social justice and progress are “the absolute guarantors of riot prevention.” But in the America of today, the one infected by COVID-19, that remains a distant promise.

June 2: Return of the worm

The arrival of cankerworms in our city is good news. Yes, you read that right. All the excrement-encrusted stickiness, all the silken-string dangle and all that sidewalk sliminess is all good news. And here’s why: the mere fact that cankerworms are getting any media attention in the midst of a pandemic speaks to how well off we are compared to pretty much everyone else.

MIKAELA MACKENZIE / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS

We could still be facing COVID-19 lockdowns. We could be nervously watching the mounting death toll from the virus. We could even be facing nightly curfews and violence in the streets like they are south of the border. Instead, with our active case count at an even dozen, we have the luxury of being able to complain about a normal part of Winnipeg in June in these most abnormal times. Oh, I stand corrected as there is one slight change to the normal course of events with this infestation of Paleacrita vernata (Peck): as part of the city’s COVID-19 protocols, in-person buffer zone applications for those who don’t want the insecticide applied near their homes will no longer be accepted. Instead, you have to call 311 or write directly to the Insect Control Branch. I know the caterpillars won’t social distance, but in this pandemic, maybe we can still find a way to appreciate the fact the worm has returned.

June 3: Hospital visits restart

Like many families, we’ve spent lots of time over the course of the pandemic worrying about our aging parents. Mind you, it’s been a little easier on me than my wife as her parents are in England, just outside the COVID-19 hotspot of London. While I can zip over in 10 minutes to check on my parents at their St. James home, the best that she can do is problem solve via FaceTime as she won’t be leaving on a jet plane for the mother country any time soon. But while proximity is on my side, there was always the real threat they were just a slip or another fall away from having to be hospitalized. In the early stages of the pandemic, the paramedics were summoned early one morning to deal with a potentially threatening issue. And late last month, there was a trip to emergency that, fortunately, was short-lived after a hastily arranged CT scan. In both cases, our family was bracing for the real threat that if one of my parents went into the hospital, we might not see them for a long, long time. Fortunately, that particular threat is about to recede as the doors to the province’s health centres will reopen to visitors after almost three months of being shuttered. I can’t imagine what it must have been like for those to have had loved ones in hospital they couldn’t visit since this restriction went into effect. Similarly, it must have been almost unbearable for those in hospital to miss out on family contact when they needed it the most. We know, too, that in some cases, those who went into hospital never came out as they died without anyone from the family being allowed in for one last visit. There are many sacrifices Manitobans have made over the course of this pandemic, and that’s why today’s announcement that hospital doors will again be open to visitors means we all have one less coronavirus worry. But there’s more to this than simply removing another potential source of pandemic panic. While most family members aren’t doctors or nurses, they are much more than just visitors when they step onto the hospital ward. “Family caregivers often support minor medical procedures, feeding, ambulation, cognitive stimulation, patient hygiene, medication adherence, and are often essential in ensuring co-ordination and continuity of care. We know their presence reduces patient anxiety, supports patient safety and improves the accuracy and quality of shared information. Their role in non-critical care is essential to supporting over- stretched clinical-team resources,” the Canadian Foundation for Healthcare Improve- ment pointed out in a piece that made clear the value of family visits in the pandemic. In a sense, the return of family visits to Manitoba hospitals means everyone from aging parents to worry-laden children are going to be just a little healthier.

June 4: Thank you, Mary

I hadn’t thought of Mary Chapin Carpenter during the pandemic until I stumbled upon her homespun performances on YouTube one night. In a series she calls Songs From Home, Carpenter stands in the kitchen, the hallway or the living room of her Virginia farmhouse with only a guitar and the occasional appearances of her dog Angus and her cat White Kitty. With a smile and a soothing tone, she welcomes you into her home, talks about life in the age of COVID-19 and urges us all to stay mighty. And then after a bit of an intro, she breaks into song. There’s a comfort that comes from the acoustic connection Carpenter has been making in these viral times that drew me back to a different time in my life, long before all of this. Beginning in 1997 with the birth of our first and then in 2000 and 2003 when No. 2 and No. 3 arrived, Carpenter’s lyrics were what I drew on when I needed to sing a lullaby. There was something about her song that was so tender and loving as she describes a night in 1910 when a father rocked his baby to sleep as Halley’s comet stretched out like a stardust streak. The magic of Carpenter’s song — based on a true story — is how the father’s prayers are answered 76 years later when that same child, now in their own golden years, is able to gaze again at the same comet from the same porch. I played Episode 8 from Songs From Home for my children and I was delighted they still remembered the lullaby I used to sing. So thank you, Mary. Again. Her latest episode featured a song I didn’t know, 4 June 1989. But given that the 31st anniversary of the Chinese military’s crackdown on protests at Tiananmen Square falls as protesters in U.S. cities are under attack from their own military, Carpenter’s song choice was pitch perfect. “When I think of the agony of what we have witnessed in the last number of days, I keep returning to what the historian Jon Meacham said, and I paraphrase: it isn’t enough to say this isn’t who we are, but to demand who do we want to be?” Carpenter explains in the episode notes accompanying today’s song. And once again, I have to say, thank you, Mary.

June 5: What would John Dafoe do?

There’s been some rearranging of the furniture in our newsroom over the course of the pandemic, so I now have a red leather chair just outside my office. But it’s not just any red leather chair as it used to belong to John Dafoe, the legendary longtime editor of the Free Press. With Dafoe at the helm from 1901-1944, the Free Press became a force in the national conversation while his reputation spread well beyond that usually granted to an editor. In fact, a 1942 magazine profile in Fortune noted that Winnipeg’s “body was built around wheat, its mind was built around Dafoe.” As I look at his old chair, I also see a framed portrait of Dafoe staring back at me from its perch on the well-worn seat cushion. And if I am honest, I think he’s actually watching me as I type this note that comes on the eve of my 32nd anniversary at the Free Press. These have not been easy times for the Free Press as we strive to cover a global pandemic that was literally taking people’s breath away while the economic fallout was taking away much of our revenue stream. The past week presented an additional challenge as our newsroom responded to the global outrage triggered by the way a white police officer’s knee forced George Floyd to take his last breath.

MANITOBA ARCHIVES John W. Dafoe was editor of the Free Press from 1901 to 1944.

Dafoe led the Free Press through two world wars, a Great Depression, a General Strike and the Spanish Flu, so I think he has a pretty good sense of what the past several months have been like for our newsroom. But the one advantage I have that Dafoe didn’t is the way we are able to hear in real time from those we serve. These past briefing intros have talked about the outpouring of support that’s come our way in cards, emails, calls, and more recently, donations. But as always, there are criticisms, concerns and complaints. This week in particular, there has been no-holds-barred commentary that has led to no shortage of reflection of how a newsroom not as diverse as it should be can best respond to the challenges of covering issues of racism. While some of the critiques have stung, the scrutiny is critical because it will help strengthen our journalism. If I’m not mistaken, I think John Dafoe just nodded in approval. June 6 and 7: A targeted approach

There’s no question that Manitoba’s state of emergency declaration and public health orders have helped flatten the COVID-19 curve. As of Sunday, the province’s total case count remains at 300. The count of fatalities hasn’t edged past seven. And the number of active cases remains in single digits. But could the province’s response have been less blunt? Could we have achieved the same results while lessening the economic suffering? Might a more surgical response to the pandemic have been better? A new study based on the cellphone data of New York residents and infection rates throughout the city suggests an alternative strategy based on targeting, rather than uniform orders for closings and reopenings, is a smarter way forward to protecting public health. In other words, you can curb COVID-19 and still minimize the induced economic losses. According to the team of economists and computer scientists at the University of Chicago and Northwestern University, the economic cost can be reduced by about 40 per cent with appropriate targeting rather than city-wide policies. Their research was based on making adjustments neighbourhood by neighbourhood. So what needed to happen in Manhattan was different from what could be done on Staten Island. But what if we applied their thinking to regions of our province? For instance, of the 300 cases recorded in Manitoba, only three have occurred in the Northern Health Region. And in that area, which covers the top half of the province, there hasn’t been a positive case in two months. Should shops in Thompson have been allowed to open earlier? Could restaurants in Flin Flon now be allowed to operate at full capacity? Might a casino in The Pas be allowed to open its doors? I recognize concerns remain about what would happen if COVID-19 struck First Nation communities, but I also recognize the province has the power to vary its state of emergency and public health orders by geography. As we move forward in the pandemic, perhaps the lessons of New York could lead to a new approach in Manitoba that keeps the curve flat and helps businesses get back on their feet.

June 8: New Zealand crushes curve

Jacinda Ardern had plenty of reason to gloat today. But New Zealand’s prime minister didn’t. And that might go a long way to explaining why New Zealand has become the first among the OECD group of wealthy nations to eradicate COVID-19. That doesn’t mean she wasn’t in a celebratory mood over the fact there were no more active cases, no more community transmission and no more reason to social distance on her island nation of five million. As Ardern explained in a FaceTime Live chat Monday, she did a little dance in front of her two-year old daughter Neve that she admitted was a bit of a “semi-co-ordinated movement my child couldn’t understand.’’ But aside from her own wobbly camera work as she talked to her citizenry from what appeared to be some back office more akin to a grade school staff room than a prime minister’s office, there was the same steadiness, the same measured tone that has drawn worldwide attention for how she came out on top of the significant pandemic threat Down Under. New Zealand’s first case was Feb. 28. Facing dire forecasts that as many as 27,600 Kiwis could die from the pandemic, she put the country into lockdown on March 25. That firm step flattened the curve so quickly that the country only recorded 1,504 cases and 22 deaths. And now, less than three months later, New Zealanders are free to return to life as normal. They can go to concerts. Play sports. Celebrate without fear. I was struck as I watched Ardern’s video chat to fellow Kiwis how genuine she seemed as she talked about what the nation had been through and what lay ahead. There was empathy. There was gratitude. And there was advice to keep washing your hands, just in case. What you didn’t see was any partisan gamesmanship, boasting, or some over-the-top claims about what it meant to be a Kiwi or how New Zealand was suddenly better than every other nation. I know a vaccine to keep us all safe is still a long way in the distance, but in the meantime, maybe Ardern’s counterparts on the global stage — most of whom are men — need to pay attention to her political prescription.

June 9: Counting cars

SPOILER ALERT: The following COVID-19 briefing will add fuel to Donald Trump’s claims that the pandemic threatening his presidency is all China’s fault. A bunch of really smart people at Harvard University have been spending a lot of time looking at satellite imagery of Wuhan hospitals and Chinese search-engine data. After obtaining multiple satellite images, they counted the cars in the hospital parking lots in the late summer and fall, months before the Chinese reported the outbreak of COVID-19 on Dec. 31. They then compared the parking lot tallies to those in satellite images of the same hospitals in the fall of 2018. And before you can say zoonotic spillover, they determined there seemed to be a lot more action at Wuhan’s hospital than a year previously. At the same time, the Harvard researchers were tracking Internet searches for cough and diarrhea in Wuhan, ground zero for the coronavirus. And when they dug into the data, they found a whole lot of Wuhan residents were suddenly searching for those two symptoms of the deadly disease at the same time that there was a sudden surge in traffic to area hospitals. While the researchers make clear their findings are quite a smoking gun — or whatever the epidemiological equivalent is — they say those two bits of evidence certainly raise questions about what the Chinese knew about an emerging public health crisis and when they knew it. “Recent evidence suggests that the virus may have already been circulating at the time of the outbreak,’’ the researchers write in their paper.” The increase of both signals (the hospital traffic and search traffic for cough and diarrhea) precedes the documented start of the COVID-19 pandemic in December, highlighting the value of novel digital sources for surveillance of emerging pathogen.” Who knew counting cars and web searches might have helped stop the spread of a global pandemic?

June 10: Rearranging the chairs

There was a time early in the pandemic when reporters at the briefings at the Mani- toba Legislative Building were still able to be present in the press theatre as long as they where socially distanced. But then the media were socially distanced all the way out of the room so that the only way questions of Premier Brian Pallister or Dr. Brent Roussin could be asked was via the clunky arrangement of dialling in by phone and watching the event remotely. It is far from ideal and all but eliminated the back and forth critical to getting answers from those in power, but for the time-being, it’s one of the new realities of COVID-19. On a different stage in a different political capital, reporters were still able to ask their difficult questions in the usual forums as long as they sat roughly two metres apart. That is until a White House press secretary rearranged the chairs so that the reporters were suddenly sitting next to each other. “You’re getting closer together, even you, I noticed,” President Donald Trump told reporters suddenly squeezed together on the Rose Garden lawn on Friday. “I noticed you’re starting to get much closer together. Looks much better.” While it was a look that mirrored Trump’s ongoing efforts to downplay the need for social distancing critical to keeping the pandemic under control, it was not a good look on the reporters who played along. As Bill Grueskin wrote Tuesday for the Columbia Journalism Review, the fact members of the White House press corps played along meant they forfeited a chance to demonstrate their independence. “You can be turned into a prop only if you allow it. After Trump is gone and historians try to figure out the role of the press in his ascent and reign, this incident will be remembered,” said Grueskin, former deputy managing editor of the Wall Street Journal who is now a member of the faculty of Columbia Journalism School. “What was stopping White House reporters from moving the chairs six feet apart? What was preventing the press corps from refusing to sit so close to one another? Would the White House have revoked their credentials? Would the Secret Service have intervened?” Reporters should never be props. They also need to be much more than stenogra- phers. And in the case of covering a global pandemic, those two requirements are more critical than ever.

June 11: A little off the top

Dealing with the locks of what’s left of my hair during the lockdown was pretty simple. A battery-operated clipper. A kitchen chair. A tea towel. And the creative styling of my 16-year-old daughter entrusted with taking a little off the top. In less than five minutes, I was more or less as good as it ever gets. For Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, on the other hand, the longer the lockdown, the longer his mane. Day after day throughout the pandemic, there’s been more hair to flip as he addressed the nation, and a beard more in need of a trim. “Was it the pandemic version of a hockey playoff beard? Was he embodying the inner haggardness of the nation, stuck at home for months?” the New York Times asked today in a piece written by its Toronto bureau chief, Catherine Porter. The answer, as Porter points out, likely has more to do with an unkempt prime minister’s desire to follow the rules while making some political points as residents of Ontario and Montreal have been barred from visiting barber shops and salons since March. But we may soon be nearing the end of his split ends as barber shops and hair salons are to reopen in Ottawa on Friday. And if a prime ministerial haircut becomes an official outing, does that mean Trudeau has another opportunity for a pandemic photo-op? “He needs to shift from Mr. Batten-down-the-hatches to Mr. Let’s-get-the-economy-moving,” said Peter Donolo who made his name as former prime minister Jean Chretien’s director of communications. “He should do a photo op at the barber, but I wouldn’t go to a fancy stylist.” On the other hand, there’s always my daughter standing by with our clippers…

June 12: No pomp, just cruel circumstances

While my high school grad was long, long ago, those memories are still so strong and clear that it sometimes seems like it was just yesterday. Delivering the valedictory address with a stumble or two. The grad dinner at what was then the Hotel Fort Garry. And a midnight cruise on the Paddlewheel Princess that came close to never leaving the dock because of some drunken shenanigans. But COVID-19 means only pomp and cruel circumstance for the roughly 18,000 Mani- toba high school seniors who are the Class of 2020. While those graduating students have been robbed of an important rite of passage, we figured we could do something special to honour those receiving their diplomas under duress. So our 49.8 cover story presents 12 profiles for Grade 12. We wanted to share their thoughts, their dreams, and yes, their frustrations at the way their school year ended.

RUTH BONNEVILLE / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS J.H. Bruns Collegiate grads have their pictures taken at the Legislative Building. “If there’s anything I could say to the Class of 2020, it would be to keep your chins up. It’s tough, but it can’t be helped,’’ Westwood Collegiate senior Josh Bond told our reporter, Maggie Macintosh. As an added bonus, Ruth Bonneville took portraits of the seniors in the grad gowns and suits that, sadly, won’t be worn to walk across the stage in front of friends and family any time soon. On behalf of the Free Press, congratulations to all our high school grads. You helped flatten the curve. Now go climb every mountain.

June 13 and 14: Border marks differences

A virus doesn’t care about borders. That’s just the way a global pandemic rolls. But the differences between what’s happening on this side of the 49th parallel compared to other side are striking beyond just the case count and the death tolls. While Canada just edged past 100,000 positive cases, the United States has more than two million. Our death count is 8,183 compared to the U.S. total of 115,436. Here’s another number to consider: The bill Michael Flor received from a Seattle hospital after his 62-day bout with COVID-19 left him near death. When he got to the bottom of the 181-page itemized account, the total tab was $1,122,501.04. “I opened it and said ‘holy (bleep),’” Flor told the Seattle Times. It’s not as if Flor, 70, didn’t realize his COVID-19 hospitalization was going to be expensive, even though he was unconscious for much of the stay. Near the beginning, his wife Elisa Del Rosario remembers him waking up and saying: “You gotta get me out of here, we can’t afford this.” As it turns out, Flor won’t have to pay for the vast majority of it because he has insurance. There are also special financial rules that only apply to COVID-19 cases, which further reduce the financial burden on patients. But as Seattle Times columnist Danny Westneat noted, Flor’s hospital stay and the bill has “family and friends marvelling at the extreme expense and bizarre economics of American health care.”

June 15: Fashion forward

I made my first trip to a mall since the pandemic began and found that things, more or less, were pretty normal. Sure there were arrows on the floors telling me which way to walk. The food court ensured the seating was properly socially distanced. And a few stores required you to wear masks before entering. But other than a few shops not yet open for whatever reason, the retail world was continuing to turn. My dear wife tried on some shoes. She asked me what I thought. I suggested she look for something slightly more fashionable. She told me she wanted comfort above all else before abruptly turning to make her way to the cash register to purchase her sensible footwear. While I didn’t know it at the time, my wife’s inclination is just one small part of how the pandemic is changing fashion and beauty trends. Given the way COVID-19 has already altered pretty much everything in every corner of the globe, we really shouldn’t be surprised at projections of a long-term shift in what we wear and why. “The longer we stay in the pandemic, the more our relationship with fashion will evolve,” fashion psychologist and branding consultant Dawnn Karen told the Wash- ington Post. The Washington Post’s reporting reveals this evolution is being driven, in part, by a desire for comfort and the realities of an economy where more of us are working from home in a world where money is tighter. Sales of men’s and women’s dress shoes plunged 70 per cent in March and April while slipper sales doubled in April. Homely but comfy Crocs are now “super hot.” There’s also the reality staring us in the face. So sales of false lashes are up as people look for ways to express themselves from behind a mask, while lip product sales went down as lipstick smudges inside masks became a no-no. “What we are looking for today are core basics,” said Morris Goldfarb, chief execu- tive of G-III Apparel Group, whose brands include DKNY. “Fashion is not as important this year.” In other words, my sensible wife with her sensible shoes is, in fact, now trendy.

June 16: A case for border closure

Today’s briefing memo offers a cautionary tale about the perils of celebrating our viral victories. Last week, there was a happy dance from New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ard- ern as her island nation declared itself free of the coronavirus. Today, there is news that the Kiwi’s COVID-free run lasted barely a week after two women who arrived in the country from Britain were found to be infected. The pair were granted an exemption from the mandatory isolation period after landing in New Zealand so they could visit a dying parent. But even though a government official insisted the women had “done everything right,” they were not diagnosed or even tested before embarking on a 650 kilometre trip from Auckland to Wellington. For the moment, there are no concerns they have spread the infection as neither woman apparently came into contact with anyone else during the journey; however, New Zealand has now suspended its policy of granting compassionate exemptions to quarantine rules. I mention this news story as it emerged that Canada and the United States announced the border would remain closed for another month. And if an island Down Under is having trouble keeping COVID away from its shores, what does that mean given our neighbour is home to the most COVID cases on the planet?

June 17: Keep on truckin’

We’ve all heard the phrase “Keep on truckin’.” And in a sense, the bit of encouragement to carry on popularized by Robert Crumb’s cartoons of men with big feet moving forward is an apt one for everyone in a pandemic. But what if persisting with an optimistic approach to a potential trouble spot increases the chances of transmitting the virus? That’s the question Dylan Robertson raises in a story that looks at the province’s decision to stick to its position that there’s no need for a proactive approach to testing truckers even though seven of Manitoba’s most recent eight cases are linked to the trucking industry. At one point, the province was looking at offering testing at truck stops, a move motivated in part by the fact Manitoba truckers do not have to self-isolate when returning to the province because they are considered essential workers. But that’s clearly not a shift favoured by the man driving the province’s response to COVID-19. “Going to impose, on a significant industry in our province, a major, mandatory testing regime or any other measure, as a consequence of what is a relatively small number of cases by any standard, would be seen — I think by the industry, and quite rightly — as an excessive intrusion and unnecessary,” Premier Brian Pallister said at a news conference Wednesday. Dylan’s story includes a telling observation from Dr. Amir Attaran, an outspoken professor of public health at the University of Ottawa, who was baffled Manitoba hasn’t implemented proactive COVID-19 testing at truck stops. “They are essentially constant travellers, so they always have the risk profile,” At- taran said. He noted poorer countries follow such protocol. He cited the example of South Africa, which tests miners after outbreaks in some mines. “If South Africa can figure this out, with a fraction of the wealth of Canada, there really is no excuse for Manitoba and other provinces not to be doing that,” Attaran said. In other words, “Keep on truckin’” might be the wrong pandemic prescription for truckers. June 18: Press theatre a no-go

Manitoba’s pandemic response plan now allows for a wide range of activities that have moved us closer to whatever the new normal will be. For weeks now, we’ve been able to get a haircut, go golfing, get a tattoo or pitch a tent at a campground. Bars and restaurants are open, and as of Sunday, they can open even wider. But even though it’s now been deemed safe to gather in numbers measured in hundreds, it remains too risky for even a few reporters to get anywhere near Premier Brian Pallister or Dr. Brent Roussin at their press briefings. There’s apparently no amount of handwashing or social distancing an ink-stained wretch can do that is sufficient to allow them back into this designated safe space in the basement of the Manitoba Legislative Building. For much of the pandemic, the press theatre where the briefings are staged and livestreamed has been off limits to the media, with the exception of a photographer and camera operator from one of the TV stations. Instead, reporters have been forced to call in their questions via telephone link. While this approach has been far from ideal, it has recently veered toward unworkable owing to a variety of glitches. Twice, the phone system wasn’t working. That snafu meant reporters had to email their questions so a government employee could then read them aloud to the premier or the chief public health officer. And today, in the middle of the Pallister’s briefing, the video feed was lost, leaving many reporters watching from afar in the dark about what the premier was saying. So our reporter Danielle Da Silva put a question to Roussin this afternoon, asking when Manitoba’s reopening strategy might finally be open to reporters returning to the press theatre. Here was Roussin’s answer: “We’re working on that and I think it will be shortly that we’ll allow that. We’ll certainly take the typical precautions, ensure that there’s ability for physical distancing, but that’s something in short order we’ll have up again.” In other words, journalists will have to remain outside in a virtual waiting room a little longer until the doctor is ready.

June 19: NHL game plan on ice

On March 10, Auston Matthews scored a goal as he helped lead the Toronto Maple Leafs to a win over the Tampa Bay Lightning. On March 11, the World Health Organization declared the coronavirus a global pandemic on a day that turned out to be the last one to feature any NHL games. And now — exactly 100 days later — Matthews’ scoring summary includes a positive test for COVID-19. How’s that for timing? News that one of the NHL’s biggest stars has been struck by the virus not only generated headlines, but raised more questions as the NHL forges ahead with efforts to start the Stanley Cup playoffs. Sure, he’s far from the first pro athlete to have tested positive. In fact, there are reports that a number of unidentified Arizona Coyote players who were training with Matthews are also infected. But there is only one AUSTON MATTHEWS! And that’s why his positive case has the potential to negate the NHL’s game plan, which involves opening training camps on July 10. After all, if a superstar in the first year of a five-year $58 million contract gets infected when he is only allowed to skate in groups of up to six, what might happen when you have 30 players and coaches together on the same ice surface? Don’t get me wrong. If the NHL somehow manages to drop the puck this summer, I will be on my couch watching the games on TV, but right now, my best bet for hockey in July is the one that landed in my inbox yesterday, announcing that my summer beer league team has been cleared to play at the BellMTS Iceplex. Unlike Matthews, there’s no lucrative contract at risk when I lace up the skates and take to the ice. NOTE TO READERS: We are letting the newsletter team take Sunday off so we can all enjoy Father’s Day. See you Monday.

June 22: In-person services still closed

In a St. James strip mall, you’ll find a Safeway grocery store and a Service Canada location that are practically neighbours. One is open and has been open throughout the pandemic. The other is closed and has been closed for most of the pandemic. One is home to those the prime minister has called heroes deserving of extra pay for keeping shelves stocked and cash registers ringing. The other is home to staff who have been, well, working from home. I mention the difference between the service Safeway Canada has provided and the service you can no longer get in person from Service Canada because Ottawa is now gearing up to have roughly 250,000 federal public servants eventually return to their workplaces. But the federal preparations — which include a 30-page guidebook — still include a big chunk of remote work, and that likely means Service Canada won’t be in service anytime soon for those who want to access a myriad of federal services from employment insurance to pension benefits to passports. I get that Ottawa had to quickly pivot when COVID-19 hit. I understand it needed to protect employees on the front lines, but as much as the federal government can pat itself on the back for its response to this unprecedented threat, it seems odd the federal bureaucracy is still reluctant to interact with Canadians face-to-face at its Service Canada centres, even from behind plastic screens or masks. Sure, the stats show that federal employees haven’t been immune to the coronavirus as 409 civil servants have tested positive. Of those diagnosed with COVID-19, half were in Quebec and 74 were in the National Capital Region. But that shouldn’t mean that Service Canada locations outside those viral hotspots have to be closed, too. Today, Treasury Board President Jean-Yves Duclos, who oversees the federal bureaucracy, had high praise for how speedy and nimble the civil service has been through the pandemic. However, he might have wanted to check out the Safeway next to his Crestview Service Canada location before he made that claim.

June 23: U.S. losing the war

If a week is a long time in politics, what is a week in politics in the midst of a pandemic? One person I’d love to have answer that question is Lindsey Graham, the Republican senator from South Carolina whose political metamorphosis has made an always Trumper from someone who four years ago was calling the man who would become president a “kook,” “crazy” and “unfit for office.” And the reason now would be a good time for him to answer that question is that the COVID-19 death toll in the United States has surpassed 120,000 with no signs of slowing down any time soon. Last month, Graham went on the record as defining what would constitute success in the fight against the pandemic that he likened to a war. “The closer you can have it to 120 [thousand deaths], I think you can say you limited the casualties in this war,’’ Graham said. Well, that prediction is yet another casualty of the war, much like the mounting death toll in South Carolina and Arizona where President Donald Trump is visiting one of the nation’s biggest megachurches today to make another speech. And in less than a week, Trump doesn’t look so immune to the pandemic’s political fallout, nor does Graham. Cue the following news release from Jaime Harrison, the Democratic candidate trying to unseat Graham in November: “Lindsey Graham has moved the goalposts for months on what he considers to be a successful handling of the crisis. But as we blow past another milestone, it makes you wonder: at what point will Sen. Graham wake up to this crisis in South Carolina and start fighting for his constituents?” As all’s fair in love, war and Senate races, Graham’s pandemic predictions and the way there is no social distance between him and the president, might actually put this Republican stronghold in play in November. Of course, it’s a long time until November. But by the time we get there, the U.S. death toll will be a long way past 120,000.

June 24: Biggs part of bigger problem

I hadn’t planned to return to the well of American pandemic politics for a second day in a row. But then I saw a tweet from Andy Biggs, a Republican member of Congress from Arizona. In the midst of an alarming rise in COVID-19 cases in his home state, Biggs took to Twitter to make a point about a spring break trip to Mexico by a bunch of college kids in late March that made headlines for all the wrong reasons. You might remember that story about the drunk and disorderly partying in Cabo San Lucas that led to a viral hangover when everyone returned to the University of Texas.

But back to Biggs’ point made this afternoon as the number of COVID-19 hospitalizations hit a new high in Arizona. In a tweet to his 193,000 followers, Biggs linked to a study that found that one third of the 183 spring breakers ended up testing positive for the coronavirus. However, what Biggs wanted to draw to everyone’s attention was this sentence: “No persons were hospitalized, and none died.” I swear I am not making this up. Even though the case study from the Centers for Disease Control talked about the need for schools and universities to make plans for isolating and testing those suspected of having COVID-19, Biggs wanted to make clear there was no harm, no foul because no one actually died. Biggs wasn’t on my radar until today, but a few keystrokes after spotting his tweet, I also learned he had written an op-ed last week that argued mandating masks was an example of government tyranny. Again, I swear I’m not making this up. “Tyrannical governments have issued mandates that everyone in virtually every place wear masks. Their authority to do so is dubious,” Biggs wrote in the Washington Examiner. “In Arizona, we are seeing tremendous government overreach. The universal mask policies cross the line. The leaders who make these orders are abusing their power and reaching into the private domains of their citizens. On this issue, they certainly resemble autocrats rather than public servants.” For much of the pandemic, the focus has been on President Donald Trump’s response to the public health crisis. But based on my reading of Biggs, there’s big problems far beyond the White House.

June 25: Changing protocols

We’ve all been social distancing for a long, long time. But does the fact life has been lived with two metres of separation mean that we can’t remember how and why things were done before COVID-19? I ask the question because today marked a turning point of sorts in Manitoba’s response to the pandemic as reporters were finally allowed back into the press theatre at the Manitoba Legislative Building to ask questions of those at the provincial microphone. Long after it was deemed safe to go bowling, dine in, pitch a tent or get a tattoo you might someday regret, a determination was made that a long-standing accountability measure was now safe to resume. Except that the long-standing accountability measure wasn’t resuming as it had before COVID-19. Yes, reporters were allowed in to take their socially distanced seats in the basement briefing room, but no, they could not ask questions of Dr. Brent Rous- sin and Education Minister Kelvin Goertzen as had been done in the past. Instead, there was a new protocol in place that saw a government official determine in which order the questions were asked and to cut off the line of inquiry as per the new dictate of one question and a brief follow-up. I won’t go into the arcane minutiae of the long-established rules of engagement between reporters and public officials. Instead, I will simply point out that the disorderly dance — the uncomfortable lines of questioning, the interruptions, the freewheel- ing, the wide range of behaviour that might seem rude to an outsider — are all part of the process because it’s what’s needed to hold those in power to account. And I can’t think of a time in our recent history where accountability mattered more than a global pandemic. All of which begs another question I’d like to ask at the microphone if I too was allowed into the basement briefing room: Are the changes to the rules of engagement that make the essential work of journalism harder to do motivated by public health concerns or political priorities?

June 26: Beach boneheads Noel Coward didn’t have the coronavirus in mind when he wrote that “mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun.” But true to the words in the song he penned, that’s exactly what’s been happening in England in the midst of a heat wave. And the madness in the country home to the third most COVID-19 deaths in the world goes well beyond dogs as the English have packed the beaches in waves that aren’t likely to help save the NHS. Lockdown be damned seems to be the rallying cry from those who have hit the beaches like there’s no tomorrow, or at least no deadly virus. Drunk. Disorderly. Defecat- ing. Done with social distancing. “There was a Lord of the Flies vibe to it. The atmosphere was ugly,” Ben Waugh told The Guardian about what he observed at the seaside resort of Bournemouth. A reference to William Golding’s dystopian novel is an apt one to make. Civilization vs. savagery. Order or chaos. Reason or impulse. It doesn’t matter if we are talking about a fictional island or the one Boris Johnson is now leading. Human nature, being what it is, will lead to conflict. And a global pandemic, as we now realize, can really spread conflict. The problem for the English since the virus spread to their island is that their prime minister seems to be more like the antagonist Jack in Golding’s classic than his pro- tagonist Ralph. We’ll be back in your inbox on Monday so enjoy the warm weather this weekend. And if you do go to the beach, keep calm and carry on in a Covid smart way.

June 29: Fireworks sales skyrocket

At a New Year’s Eve party in our neighbourhood, we headed into the cold just after midnight for a fireworks show that was louder and brighter than recommended for a tiny cul-de-sac. While we didn’t know it at the time, China was officially announcing a cluster of pneumonia cases in Wuhan that set the entire planet on course for a 2020 that was not the year any of us wanted. Six months later, COVID-19 is still forcing us to make resolutions in the name of public health. And one of those means there won’t be any big fireworks shows for Canada Day like we’ve seen in the past at The Forks or Assiniboine Park. But as Kevin Rollason reports, that doesn’t mean no fuses will be lit on July 1. If you are really in the mood for a Roman Candle or two and are willing to drive, then Richer and St. Pierre-Jolys are standing by to light up the night with fireworks shows that will meet both fire codes and public health requirements. Or, you can do what was done at our neighbourhood New Year’s Eve party as sales are skyrocketing from those selling fireworks in our city. Regardless of how you spend Canada Day, here’s hoping the second half of 2020 is better than the first.

June 30: Seat stress

I’m told air travel used to be glamorous. I’ve seen documentaries that make that case, despite the fact those were the days when smoking was still allowed on flights. But as of Canada Day, longing for those nostalgic days won’t be on the minds of most passengers as the so-called social distancing on Canada’s two largest airlines ends. Both Air Canada and WestJet will again be selling adjacent seats, a move that, while permitted under federal rules, is raising concerns from Canada’s top public health officer. “We really feel it is important to avoid the close physical contact as much as possible,” Dr. Theresa Tam said. “And if not, wear the medical mask.” There’s no denying the turbulence the airline industry has faced during the pandemic. And to underscore that point, Air Canada announced today it was cancelling 30 domestic routes and closing eight stations at regional airports. Among the routes affected was the Winnipeg to Regina run. But if you didn’t have reservations about the return of side-by-side seating on airlines, the news today from Manitoba’s COVID-19 update might just change that. One of the new positive cases this week involved someone who had taken three Air Canada flights earlier in June, and that means the province is now advising those in the various rows near that passenger to self monitor. In other words, buckle up as the next normal for air travel will have us all wishing for the days when the biggest concern was cigarette smoke wafting into the non-smoking section. Wednesday, July 1: The cost of no holidays

Happy Canada Day, eh! Aside from waving the flag, July 1 is normally the start of the summer travel season. School is out. The sun is out. So let’s get out and be a tourist somewhere, anywhere. A year ago at this time, we were entertaining the family of our son’s NDSU roommate who were making their first trip to Canada. We took them to the usual tourist spots around town: boarding the Nonsuch at the Manitoba Museum, a water taxi at The Forks, polar bears at the zoo, dinner in the Exchange. And aside from getting a taste of all that their northern neighbour offers, they also brought U.S. dollars into our economy. Alas, there won’t be any return trips for them to Canada this summer, just as we aren’t sure when we will get back down to North Dakota to see them again. And that all adds up. Big time. A new report from the United Nations today tallies up the hit COVID-19 is having on global tourism revenues — and the numbers are staggering. In the worst-case scenario — lockdown measures lasting 12 months — the hit is US$3.3 trillion. Even in the best case scenario — with lockdowns lasting four months — the impact is US$1.17 trillion. When you measure it by the impact on the global economy, that means between 1.5 to 4.2 per cent of GDP. According to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, the United States stands to lose the most, but Canada is on the Top 15 list of the countries that will be hardest hit. Under the mid-range scenario of eight months of lockdowns, that forecasts an $18.4 billion loss for the Canadian economy. “These numbers are a clear reminder of something we often seem to forget: the economic importance of the sector and its role as a lifeline for millions of people all around the world,” said UNCTAD’s director of international trade, Pamela Coke-Hamilton. “For many countries, like the small island developing states, a collapse in tourism means a collapse in their development prospects. This is not something we can afford,” she added. It’s the kind of sentiment that can leave us all wanting a holiday.

July 2: A Hail Mary in America

If football is a religion in the United States, then maybe, just maybe, pigskin can save pigheaded Americans from themselves this pandemic. Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson wasn’t summoning his inner Moses as he took to the podium Wednesday. Nor was he carrying two stone tablets. But he did have a football in one hand and a mask in the other as he issued this commandment: “If we want football, high school football, high school sports this year and, beyond that, in college, we need to concentrate on this mask now. There’s a connection between the two. We wear our masks, we reduce the cases, we reduce the growth, we stop the spread of the virus. And that puts us in a better position to have some type of team sports this fall,” said the Republican governor. Arkansas is a football hotbed and the governor’s alma mater, the University of Ar- kansas Razorbacks football team, has a devoted following that trumps that of many churches. Alas, Arkansas is also a COVID-19 hotbed with more than 22,000 cases and 277 deaths to date. And for the moment, Hutchinson hasn’t made masks mandatory. But maybe his audible that plays to the way football is worshipped will be the game changer that gets Americans to make masks part of their daily habit. Sure, President Donald Trump has finally opened the door to actually wearing a one in public, bragging that when he did have a black mask on that he looked like the Lone Ranger. But Americans can’t afford to wait for the Lone Ranger to come to the rescue, and that’s why Hutchinson’s invocation of football might be a faster way to salvation from COVID-19. After all, at this point in the pandemic, the Americans really need a Hail Mary.

July 3: A self-examination

The intro to tonight’s coronavirus update has been weeks in the making and comes after plenty of reflection, discussion and emotional debate in our newsroom. At a time when social distancing has been key to wrestling a global pandemic to the ground, we’ve come face-to-face with a wave of racial reckoning. The first wave of COVID-19 has changed our world. The wave of anger triggered by the death of George Floyd, an unarmed Black man at the hands of a white policeman, is changing our world. Like newsrooms everywhere, we are not immune to the difficult but necessary conversations about race, racism and injustice as we consider our role and our responsibilities as journalists. And so after many drafts, I have written an overdue apology on behalf of the Free Press for the times when our coverage has fallen short, for being blind to those marginalized by the colour of their skin, and yes, for a history that shows we have, at times, been part of the problem, not the solution. That statement, published both in print and online, comes as we launch a major examination of race and racism, a newsroom-wide project that will generate stories over the next several months. As Julia-Simone Rutgers writes in the introduction to this series: “The Black experience, in Winnipeg and beyond, is not linear or singular. These stories present some of the range and breadth of that experience, while shed- ding light on the aspects that are shared and collective… These stories are illuminating, honest and expressive. These stories issue a challenge to listen.” As always, we aim to earn the trust of readers with our journalism, but in this case, I hope we can start to regain the trust of those we have failed.

July 6: The KISS Principle

There is usually all sorts of stuff that lands in my inbox overnight waiting to greet me in the morning. But in the midst of a pandemic, I have to confess I didn’t see this one coming: Hi Paul, Kissing is an age-old practice with significance that extends far beyond just romance. No matter which type of kiss you prefer, International Kissing Day on July 6 is normally the perfect time of year to celebrate this simple but powerful gesture. However, 2020 is anything but normal, and as the coronavirus continues to rage on, everything from a formal kiss on the cheek, to a kiss hello and a kiss goodbye, is no longer the proper etiquette. At this point, I should have really just kissed off this email, but since I’m always on the lookout for interesting stories and tidbits to write about in this briefing’s opening remarks, I read on. Apparently, in lieu of a kiss the suggestions offered were to tap feet, bump elbows or share some hand sanitizer to mark the day in a COVID-smart way. But I’m suggesting two other alternatives. And no, blowing a kiss isn’t one of them. First, you could fire up your favourite Kiss song. In my case, that would be Rock and Roll All Nite. But the second alternative, the KISS principle, is likely a better one as it does more than pay lip service to public health advice. So the best gesture on July 6 and every day until we plank the curve is to “Keep It Simple, Stupid,” by washing your hands, not touching your face and social distancing.

CALVIN LEE JOSEPH PHOTOS The Free Press featured stories of Black Winnipeggers who shared their stories of feeling like outsiders and of being pushed away from their communities. July 7: The power of anticipation

The Winnipeg Jets season came to a sudden halt on March 11 after a win over the Edmonton Oilers. My beer league season with a team, which just happens to be named the Jets, also came to a sudden halt the very same night after a win over the Bruins. The pandemic that has since dominated our lives has made for a long four months for hockey fans, which is why it felt so good last week to take a first stride toward a new normal at the Jets practice facility. The fact I was back on the ice before the NHL Jets was, well, the icing on the cake. To be sure, the new normal meant things weren’t the same at the BellMTS Iceplex. Before you could enter the rink, you have to go through a mandatory screening process. There are now clearly marked spots on the dressing room benches to keep us all two metres apart, plus a strict limit on how many players are allowed to enter. And after the game, you have to clear the room in 15 minutes, so there’s no time for a quick shower. Or a beer. But between those new restrictions, the game was as I remembered it. Some of our passes connected. Many didn’t. We made some pretty plays, usually by accident. And while we still don’t bother to back-check, at least this time we could blame the lack of defensive effort on the need to social distance. In other words, the hockey game we played wasn’t much to watch. But to us, it was still pretty special because it was something we had all looked forward to for a long time. At times in the darkest days of the pandemic, living in the present wasn’t much fun. Staying put meant there was little difference between monotony’s blur of a weekday still at home or a weekend stuck at home. Travel was out of the picture so there was literally no escape. The best we could do was to look forward to something in the future that would help get us through the present. For me, the power of anticipation involved hockey. And that’s why I am already eagerly looking forward to tomorrow and my next hockey game.

July 8: Quiet on that rollercoaster!

There’s riding a rollercoaster scary, and then there’s riding a rollercoaster in the middle of a pandemic scary. And this weekend, we will soon find out just how scary riding a COVIDcoaster is as Walt Disney World is forging ahead with its plan to reopen in Florida on Saturday. I’m going to repeat the fact that Florida is the theme park’s home as the Sunshine State is also rife with COVID-19. In fact, the New York Times today reported there is only one place in the world where confirmed coronavirus cases are growing as rapidly as in Florida — and that dubious honour goes to another U.S. state: Arizona. But not to worry as precautions are being taken at Walt Disney World. You will have to wear masks. And you won’t be able to get hugs anymore from Mickey or Minnie. If that’s not quite magical enough to convince you it’s safe to enter the Magical Kingdom, there’s always the solution now in place at Japanese theme parks that are doing their part to stop the spread of coronavirus by discouraging screaming on rollercoasters. And if you think that riding a rollercoaster in silence is impossible, the Japanese already have evidence that the theme park etiquette is indeed possible. The video evidence, if I can call it that, shows two executives from a Japanese theme park going up, up, up and then down, down, down with nary a sound escaping from their masked mouths. I watched the whole thing and wasn’t sure if I was more stunned by their no- scream experience or the fact one of the test pilots wore a suit and tie while the other opted for a bow tie. The video ends with the message to riders: Please scream inside your heart. I might get to a silent scream once I stop laughing and shaking my head.

July 9: Eat out to help out

As the Ides of March marked the arrival of COVID-19 to our province, I was enjoying dinner and drinks at a neighbourhood restaurant with a buddy who had flown in just before the lockdown. I didn’t know then what a pandemic would bring, but there were signs of the toll it would exact by the time my second beer was poured. The kitchen was closing early because demand was already falling. One of the owners confessed the trend was more than troubling. And in short order, we were the only ones left in what would be the last Saturday night that restaurant would be open for months to come. This past week, I returned for some bites and beer to see how things were now that they were back in business. The patio was great. So was the food. But even though the law says they can return to full capacity, the reality is that social distancing means they are only able to use 50 per cent of their tables. In other words, there’s likely some distance to go before this restaurant and others in the city will know if they can outlast the pandemic. But there is another option on the table to help restaurants bridge that distance when you look to what’s happening in Britain as part of its latest pandemic plan announced in a mini-budget today. The new “eat out to help out” scheme involves the government offering deep dis- counts to entice Brits to help feed the economy by supporting the hospitality industry. Starting in August, participating restaurants will be able to offer half-price meals Monday through Wednesday. The government will reimburse the restaurants for the discount offered, getting the money back to them within five working days. The British treasury predicts the scheme will cost about $900 million in delivering about 50 million meals. I’m not saying this is a policy decision that would work on this side of the Atlantic Ocean, but I’m sure I could find a few restaurant owners who wouldn’t mind seeing it on Ottawa’s menu.

July 10: Time with Dr. Fauci

I suppose we shouldn’t be surprised that the bureaucratic heads of our health-care systems have become household names — and even heroes — during the pandemic Dr. Brent Roussin, Manitoba’s chief public health officer, probably has better name recognition these days than many in Premier Brian Pallister’s cabinet. In Vancouver, the larger than life faces of British Columbia’s top doctor, Dr. Bonnie Henry, and Dr. Theresa Tam, Canada’s chief public health officer, are celebrated on a mural. And south of the border, the world has frequently been hanging on every word from Dr. Anthony Fauci, the 79-year-old who is the top adviser to the White House’s coronavirus task force. Alas, for the past two months, Donald Trump has left the good doctor hanging. As Hannah Kuchler reveals in her interview with Fauci published by the Financial Times today, there’s now more than social distance at play between the straight- talking scientist and Trump. “Fauci last saw Trump in person at the White House on June 2 — and says he has not briefed the president for at least two months,” writes Kuchler. “He tells me this in a matter-of-fact tone, but I suspect that his indifference is feigned. While Trump holds potential superspreader events, Fauci meets with the task force run by the vice-president. He says he is ‘sure’ that his messages are passed along — but Trump is evident- ly not listening. On July 4, the president declared that 99 per cent of Covid-19 cases were ‘harmless.’” The supposed one per cent of COVID-19 cases that by extension are harmless have now led to nearly 134,000 deaths in the country Trump leads. In that interview, the leading public health official now serving his sixth president says he understands why Fauci-mania has taken off during what he describes as a perfect storm. “I believe, in fact I’m certain, that the country, in a very stressful time, needed a symbol of someone who tells the truth, which I do.” I’m betting these would be far less stressful times for all if Trump had been willing to spend as much time with Fauci as he has been with Fox’s Sean Hannity over the past two months.

July 13: Down to one

It might seem like COVID-19 is off on holidays, especially since we haven’t seen a positive case in Manitoba all of July. But viruses don’t take vacations so we need to be careful how we unpack the fact the province is on the verge of being free of active cases of the coronavirus. There is now only one active case in the province — and that anonymous person will move to the recovered side of the ledger as early as Tuesday. “We can’t let our guards down. The low number does set us up for people to think that we’re done with this virus or that this virus is done with us, and I can assure Manito- bans that that is not the case,” Dr. Brent Roussin warned reporters Monday. Still, being free of active cases will mark a significant milestone for Manitobans, given all that has happened in this province since that first positive case on March 12. That milestone becomes all the more significant when you look at what’s happening outside our boundaries. Again looking south of the border as we have previously done in these newsletters, you will see that North Dakota added 108 new cases today, pushing their active case count to 702. Again looking at our closest U.S. neighbour with a far smaller population than that of Manitoba, you will see 4,564 positive cases and 87 deaths. And to think that North Dakota is doing much better than many states in the union. This July has already proven to be one that stands out for all the wrong reasons. We didn’t get to go to the folk fest, we won’t get to go to the fringe fest, but the fact we increasingly might not get COVID-19 might make for a better July then anyone could have imagined a few short months ago.

July 14: A new playbook

While it surely won’t go down as a major turning point in the battle against COVID-19, today did mark a significant step forward for the Free Press as part of our efforts to navigate the pandemic’s curve. Four months after the coronavirus forced us to reduce the number of sections in our print platform, we have returned to a separate sports section for our sports fans and a distinct Arts & Life section for those who love coverage of entertainment and lifestyles. The decision to initially merge those two sections into the newly created Plus was not an easy one, but with little to cover in the way of sports and entertainment amid the spreading panic of a fast-moving pandemic, we felt we had no other choice. Similarly, we had little choice but to have most of our staff work remotely, and then, to accept temporary salary cuts as deep as 20 per cent to deal with the hit the virus was having on our revenues. But the situation on July 14 is far different than the one we were facing on March 14, when the province was moving into lockdown and arenas and theatres were suddenly going dark. The Winnipeg Jets are back on ice, gearing up for the playoffs. The Raptors and Blue Jays are also on deck. And while theatres remain closed, there is life again at our museums, galleries and music venues. In other words, there is more for us to write about and more for you to read. We want to thank you for your patience, understanding and support over the past several months. While we haven’t yet turned the page on the pandemic, you now have more pages to turn in your Free Press. At the same time, we haven’t forgotten about our growing digital audience, so today we also rolled out a new and improved Playbook, our newsletter that covers the Jets and the rest of the sports world. Much like this newsletter, Playbook is free for all to enjoy. If you haven’t signed up for it, you can do so here. And if you are already enjoying it, please feel free to invite your friends or family to become Playbook readers, too.

July 15: Back to the pitch

My daughter got in the car last night and was clearly reading my mind when she offered this observation: “Dad, you must be really happy because you are finally able to drive me to one of my sporting events again.” I smiled, and with that, we were on our way to her first soccer game of the season that has finally started after being on hold for three months. Those weren’t the first words of wisdom to come out of the mouth of my teen during the pandemic. My favourite was the time we were discussing the headlines of the day over dinner and she learned her grandparents were each going to be on the receiving end of the province’s pandemic payments as compensation for whatever challenges COVID-19 had thrown at those over the age of 65. And with that, she delivered a scathing policy critique that went something like this: “COVID-19 hasn’t changed anything for Gran and Papa. They don’t go out to begin with, so staying at home is no big deal to them. And we’ve been the ones running around to help them out with shopping and stuff. The ones who have been suffering are kids like me. We’re the ones not able to go to school. We are the ones who have seen our sports cancelled. The ones who have to stay home rather than hang out with friends. And we are making those sacrifices to ensure they don’t get COVID. If someone deserves to get a COVID cheque, it’s me.” I had to both laugh and nod, in part because she was right. And in part, because I can’t imagine what I would have felt as a 16-year-old with school and sports and a social life suddenly put on hold for months. That conversation happened months ago and clearly wasn’t on her mind as she took to the soccer pitch with her teammates. But I was thinking about it as I watched her play and another bit of normalcy returned to our lives that not even a sudden storm with driving rain could dampen. And as the final whistle sounded to mark a win for her team, a double rainbow appeared. One for her. And one for me.

July 16: Missing the fringe

In normal times, this would have been the start of our newsroom’s annual fringe play, an improv effort big on deadline drama that always seemed in danger of veering into tragedy as we desperately scrambled to review and package 170 plays. But the curtain will not rise on this year’s newsroom Winnipeg Fringe Festival production because there is no fringe festival this summer. As theatre critic Randall King writes, he’s definitely feeling the absence of the festival’s 12-day run that was kneecapped by COVID-19: “As an entertainment reporter, I’ve been attending the annual theatre fest for the better part of 30 years. I must add: It was never a task. Even when I was covering film, fringe season has always been my favourite time of year.” To help Randall mourn the loss of Fringe 2020, we tasked him with compiling his own Top 5 list that includes surprises, clunkers and, yes, butter chicken. You can read Randall’s list here if you need help going through your Fringe with- drawal. And if you really want to get your Fringe going, don’t be afraid to review Randall’s piece and add your own star rating. I’m sure he’ll appreciate the support as he wanders aimlessly by the Cube.

July 17: Surface issues

In the early days of the pandemic, when fear and uncertainty were spreading as fast as the virus, I heard from more than a few subscribers who wanted to know if there was a chance of catching COVID-19 from reading their newspaper. I did my best to reassure them there was no evidence that newspapers were transmitting the coronavirus. I told them that our printing practices meant that no hands touched the product until it left the plant. And I added that we were taking extra precautions with our carriers who delivered the paper into their mailbox each morning. But I realized that my points likely fell on deaf ears, in part because of what was happening in my own home. One evening, I got more than a stern look from my dear wife when I made the mistake of bringing home some takeout food for dinner and had the temerity to put the packages on our kitchen island. In short order, the counter was being disinfected and all sorts of manic wiping of Styrofoam packaging ensued, taking all the pleasure out of an otherwise fine meal. But a new study shows our home subscribers had little to worry about, and that putting the takeout on the counter wasn’t the dumbest thing I’ve done all pandemic. Dr. Emanuel Goldman, a professor of microbiology, biochemistry and molecular genetics at Rutgers University, found the risk of catching COVID-19 from touching contaminated surfaces and objects — or what scientists call fomites — is “negligible.” But Goldman’s research goes beyond making people feel safer about reading their newspaper or the packaging that comes into their home. It might also mean that ele- vator buttons, door handles and playground structures are also much safer to touch than previously believed. You’ve [still] got to protect yourself,” Dr. Goldman said, emphasizing people should not ignore the seriousness of COVID-19. “But you’ve got to protect yourself correctly — not by worrying about surfaces, but by worrying about what you breathe.” And on the surface, that’s the kind of research that can make us all breathe a little easier.

July 20: Premier calls audible

If not for COVID-19, the Winnipeg Blue Bombers would be enjoying a well-deserved week off after five games of the CFL season that fans of the Grey Cup champs hoped would have been five straight wins. Alas, this is not a bye week but a week in which the league might be forced to wave goodbye to the season for good. With a self-imposed deadline for a go-or-no-go decision looming on whether the Grey Cup will be in play this year, Premier Brian Pallister stepped up to the line of scrimmage to call an audible in a bid to have Winnipeg become the bubble city for a pandemic-shortened CFL season. The premier’s pitch came with an offer of $2.5 million to help make the seemingly impossible fiscally possible. Before Bomber fans get their hopes up, they might want to read Jeff Hamilton thoughts on Pallister’s Hail Mary. If not for COVID-19, Jeff would have already spent several months on the sidelines covering the Bombers training camp, exhibition tilts and home and road games. But the fact he has done none of the above means Jeff has already invested a lot of time paying attention to the CFL’s efforts to salvage the season. And that means Jeff is ideally suited to tackle Pallister’s plan. SPOILER ALERT: Jeff doesn’t think it will work for a bunch of reasons he outlines here. But in reading Jeff’s piece, what struck me most was the fact that Manitoba apparently isn’t the only one in the bidding for the CFL’s version of mission impossible. “The opportunity to host the CFL season isn’t something that we want to punt to Sas- katchewan or have intercepted by Hamilton,” Pallister said. I’m not sure a pandemic is the best time for policy decisions to be motivated by com- petitive instincts. And with that observation on the record, let’s give the last word on Pallister’s pitch to Jeff: “Unless there are better protocols in place to better protect Manitobans, Winnipeg is better off taking a pass on this.”

July 21: A diary of food and frustrations

Amid the clutter posted to our kitchen fridge is a running diary of our pandemic that my dear wife began 18 weeks ago. In a growing pile of pages the single magnet is barely able to keep from falling to the floor, she has recorded what we have eaten, who cooked it and where the recipes were sourced. Jamie Oliver seems to have been a frequent culinary inspiration. Leafing through the pages reminds us of that Easter dinner without our extended family, what we served the first time we had our neighbours over when the lockdown eased and what we ate during other big gatherings such as Mother’s Day and Father’s Day. I’m not sure why my wife began this record and she can’t remember either, other than she thinks it might have had something to do with the fact she wanted to track why our grocery bill was going through the roof once we were all under the same roof, day after day after day. But she did point out that the first few weeks were neatly written, complete with exclamation points and even a side note reminder to bump elbows. But as the pandemic stretched on, the notes become messier, perhaps even angry. By week five, there’s a sad face added that had nothing to do with the toasted cheese and bacon sandwiches served. The story of the pandemic has been recorded in many ways. By deaths. By case counts. By transmission rates. By rolling positivity rates. I’m not sure how our meal plans fit into Manitoba’s efforts to flatten the curve, but if you are what you eat, this diary of food and frustrations is the best record of our COVID-19 experience we have. And that’s why tonight I was delighted we could add an entry that our family dinner included a birthday cake for my dear wife. July 22: Fauci’s latest pitch

Shortly after 7 p.m. Thursday in Washington, D.C., Dr Anthony Fauci will be handed a baseball as he takes to the pitcher’s mound for the Nationals home-opener against the Yankees. The honour of throwing out the first pitch for his beloved World Series champions is one well deserved for the leading infectious disease expert. “Dr. Fauci has been a true champion for our country during the COVID-19 pandemic and throughout his distinguished career, so it is only fitting that we honour him as we kick off the 2020 season and defend our World Series Championship title,” the Nation- als said in a statement. While no fans will be in the stands, let’s hope more Americans start paying attention to every pitch Fauci delivers, even if U.S. President Donald Trump labels him an alarmist. When you think about it, what Fauci has been pitching throughout the pandemic are essentially lob balls that are pretty easy for everyone to hit. Wear a mask. Avoid large crowds. And yet, the COVID-19 case count and death toll in the United States keeps rising higher and higher. As of Wednesday, the Centres for Disease Control tracking showed there were 63,028 new cases and an additional 1,047 deaths. So would there have been a time in recent American history when the nation would have been better able to get this pandemic under control? That’s the question the New York Times put to Fauci in an interview on Tuesday. Here’s his answer: “In some respects, we are better off because of the technologi- cal advances. I mean, 20 years ago, we never would have been able to get candidate vaccines ready to go into Phase 3 trials literally within a few months of the discovery of the new virus. That is unprecedented. But there was a time when there was much more faith and confidence in authority and in government. It’s very, very difficult to get the country to pull together in a real unified way. Maybe the last time that we ever did that was 9/11.” Of course, the nearly 142,000 deaths in the U.S. from the coronavirus dwarfs that of the 9/11 body count. In that interview, Fauci maintains he is not only a realist, but someone who still believes he can get people to listen to his medical advice. “I’m a pretty good communicator. I have been doing that now with multiple outbreaks for about 40 years, dating back to the very early years of H.I.V. I’m just going to continue to use whatever bully pulpit I have, and, you know, just keep hacking at it.” And if that bully pulpit is a pitcher’s mound, then all the better. So let’s root, root, root for Dr. Fauci. For if he don’t win, it will be a deadly shame. July 23: Lives over increased liberty

It’s often said that Medicare is a defining icon between Canada and the United States. We’ve had a publicly funded universal health-insurance program for as long as I have been around. The best the Americans can muster is Obamacare — and right now its fate is in the hands of the United States Supreme Court. But over the past 48 hours, Manitobans added a new definition of the difference between them and us when they told the Pallister government to tap the brakes on the planned easing of restrictions as part of the province’s reopening strategy. Yes, you read that right. What was on offer for Manitobans was a wider-open province, more like the one they knew pre-pandemic. A Manitoba so friendly that travellers from COVID-19 hotspots such as Montreal and Toronto would be welcomed without the need for a 14-day isolation period. A province so confident that anyone could again belly up to the bar to order their favourite brew. Plus, the offer came with a reminder from a premier that “we can’t continue to live our lives in fear.” And yet, the answer to that offer from the almost 50,000 respondents to the public consultations was a loud and clear “NOT SO FAST!” While many Americans remain impatient with anything approximating a lockdown, Manitobans decided that a common good is more important than individual wants. While the United States seems immune to the fact that the virus won’t simply disappear, Manitobans are willing to delay their gratification a little longer to get an already flattened curve even flatter. In 1775, when revolution was in the air, Patrick Henry made a speech to the Second Virginia Convention that included this memorable line: “Give me liberty or give me death!” Some 245 years later in the nation he helped design, that lusting for liberty in the midst of a pandemic is leading to death. Far too many deaths. There are no memorable speeches that I can draw upon from Manitoba’s decision to enter Confederation in 1870, but 150 years later when Manitobans were given the option of more liberty in the midst of a pandemic, they made a decision that the lives they’ve been working hard to save were more important. And that itself, will be memorable.

July 24: Collector card

Long ago, I was a collector of hockey cards. I could get a package for 10 cents at the corner store across the street from Strathmil- lan School on my walk home. And then, while chewing through that cardboard stick of gum, I’d flip through the stack in hopes that the ever elusive Ken Dryden would be part of the mix. Sadly, I never got my hands on that Dryden rookie card from Topps. I was never a collector of baseball cards, but if I wanted Dr. Anthony Fauci’s rookie card, I could avoid the Dryden disappointment of my childhood by going online now to Topps. As part of a special 24-hour offer, the trading card company has a limited edition glossy print of his opening day pitch for the Washington Nationals available for $9.99. The image of the masked man on the pitcher’s mound captures the form of what you might expect from a man who is an infectious disease expert, not a starting ace. The video of that first pitch Thursday night in the game against the New York Yan- kees reveals what happens when a 79-year-old arm that has spent most of its time trying to arm a nation against a global pandemic rather than working in the bullpen tries to hit the strike zone. Among the more charitable descriptions I found online of Fauci’s first pitch is that he ensured the ball was socially distant to home plate. This is the second time this week that I’ve written about Fauci, in part because I can’t get over the fact that someone trying to heal his nation is constantly undermined and undercut. Like my hero Ken Dryden, Fauci is someone with the ability to make a great save. And in the case of the United States, the saves that really matter now aren’t the ones a pitcher can earn.

July 27: One step forward, one step back

Early in the pandemic, we had to bid farewell to our old microwave. We didn’t bother to get it tested for COVID-19, but my dear wife still counts it as one of the casualties of the coronavirus. In its place, we have a new LG microwave that features a chime that repeatedly calls ever so gently to signal it has finished heating whatever we wanted heated. That pleasant beckoning tone almost makes up for the fact we lose our Wi-Fi whenever the new microwave is running. One step forward. One step back. But LG’s beckoning innovations go well beyond that tone as the South Korean firm has now developed a mask that comes with miniature fans to draw in fresh air. In other words, a mask for all seasons of the pandemic. I’ve turned my attention to masks today because Dr. Brent Roussin hinted a recommendation for wearing face coverings in all indoor places could come as early as the fall to help guard against the spread of the virus. The musing from the province’s chief public health officer — who has earlier questioned the effectiveness of wearing masks — is part of the continual evolution of Manitoba’s pandemic response. That evolution now means we will only see one weekly briefing from Roussin about the province’s pandemic fight. For the past while — even when there was a run of 13 straight days with no new positive cases — there were two briefings per week. And in the early stages of the pandemic, there were briefings seven days a week. It might be too cute by half to suggest the reduction in briefings is an attempt by the province at masking what’s going on with its pandemic response, especially as we are seeing a resurgence in cases. But if we do end up going to mandatory masks in the fall, you might want to get in line now for what LG offers. And if we are all required to wear masks indoors while Roussin is required to only hold one weekly briefing for the public, we might want to ask why we are taking one step forward and one step back.

July 28: No way to score top marks

As early as Thursday, Manitobans should hear the province’s back-to-school plan that will likely be big on reading, writing and social distancing. But a return to classroom learning is easier said than done in the midst of a global pandemic. There will be questions. There will be fears. And there will be lots of homework to be done before school divisions are ready to have principals opening the front doors to welcome teachers and students back on Sept. 8. In fact, a new national poll suggests parents are on the fence about whether to send their kids back to school. In the case of parents in Manitoba and Saskatchewan, Leger and the Association for Canadian Studies found 67 per cent were prepared to send their children to school, while five per cent said no to that option and 29 per cent were unsure. But how much of the uncertainty about schooling this fall is rooted in a desire for a perfect solution, rather than one that’s workable? I have my hand up to ask that question because I worry that definitions of what makes for a safe school have become unrealistic. And unrealistic expectations are not a good way to respond to a pandemic. So here’s some of my reading on the subject of school reopening from Emily Oster, an economics professor at Brown: “Bottom line: When schools open, there will be cases. It is necessary to have a concrete plan for what will happen when this occurs,” Oster writes in today’s New York Times. “It is worth pausing for a moment on why there is a reluctance to discuss this. In my view, it is because those who want to open are afraid that if they acknowledge there will be cases in schools, those who oppose opening will use that to argue schools are unsafe. Indeed, there are movements in California and elsewhere saying that teachers should not return to the classroom until there are no new COVID-19 cases in the school community for 14 days. This is effectively a mandate to not open at all, possibly ever.” So the reality of schooling in the age of coronavirus is that risk will become one of four Rs. We need to acknowledge that some kids will get the virus, as will some teachers. Here’s hoping the province recognizes that reality and comes up with a plan that responds to those risks. At the same time, let’s all recognize that no back-to-school plan is going to get an A+ as a virus doesn’t really care about top marks.

July 29: Tracking sports a snap

If you have a kid playing team sports, then you’ve probably come across TeamSnap, an online tool that helps keep players and parents in the loop about games and practices. For obvious reasons, the pandemic hasn’t been a snap for TeamSnap. But now, in conjunction with Under Armour, TeamSnap has created a heat map that provides a real-time, data-informed tracking of kids returning to sports from baseball to soccer to hockey. The heat map allows comparisons between Canada and the United States on a provincial and state basis. For instance, Manitoba has a return-to-sport score of 100 per cent. By comparison, New Mexico has a score of only 25.7 per cent. Even after you strip out U.S. states and their own viral issues, Manitoba stands out. For instance, our hockey score is at 100 per cent while Ontario is only at 37.1 per cent. Similarly, Manitoba gets top marks for soccer while British Columbia’s score is 48.6 per cent. As much as I have relied on TeamSnap as a coach and a parent, I’m not suggesting its heat map could be some sort of playbook for the pandemic. Instead, the app that prides itself on “taking the work out of play” has done some work I found fun to play with as I typed away in my office. Now if TeamSnap was able to tweak its heat map to track which MLB teams weren’t in danger of being benched because of COVID…

July 30: Back-to-school plan

After months of planning, meetings, and no shortage of handwringing, Manitoba finally has a back-to-school plan geared to getting kids into the classroom. But what if that plan is only half right? And when I say half right, I mean a plan that only responds to the needs of half the province. If you look at Manitoba’s COVID-19 case count, you’ll find that every single one of the 76 active cases is located in the southern half of the province. The northern half of the province — that huge swath of Manitoba from the tops of Lake Winnipeg and Lake Manitoba to Hudson Bay — has been virus-free for months. In fact, the last active case in the Northern Health Region was announced on April 8. Since the pandemic hit and schools were closed in March, there have been only three cases reported in that RHA, all of which have recovered. This is not to suggest that the top half of our province has developed some sort of coronavirus immunity, but I worry that the challenges the pandemic have posed in the southern half of the province have infected the thinking of those making decisions that affect the schooling of those in the northern half. For example, could a return to classroom learning have happened in June for those living in Thompson? What lessons might have been learned about social distancing in the lunch room or hallways had the province opened up classrooms in a region that had already gone weeks without a single case? And if Thompson remains a no-virus zone, should we limit learning there because of rules put in place to protect students and teachers in Transcona, Teulon or Treherne? Before the school year ended, the School District of Mystery Lake surveyed parents of the nearly 3,000 students in Thompson about the pandemic. At the time, the overwhelming response from parents was that they wanted their kids to be back in school come September for full days. Let’s hope those parents are being listened to in September. Let’s hope the province’s back-to-school plan gets things right for both halves of the province.

July 31:

There was no shortage of fanfare that accompanied a news release from the federal government today announcing the gradual resumption of passport services. But given that this notice was coming out on the last day of July in a country that has already taken numerous strides towards something resembling normal, I’d suggest a hint of humility rather than a case of congratulations would have been in order. I get that difficult decisions were made during the uncertain early days of the pandemic when viral cases were growing exponentially, but Canada’s COVID-19 curve has long been flattened. And if we are now drinking in bars while watching NHL playoff action, then allowing Canadians to again apply for passports by mail is a pretty low bar — and an overdue one at that. OK. Maybe, I’m being too tough on the federal bureaucracy. Perhaps I should be more mindful that the virus still poses a greater threat in Toronto and Montreal than it does to Winnipeg or Halifax. But what if the problem surrounding an essential service such as getting a passport essentially revolves around the fact that two tiers of workers have emerged during the pandemic? There are those who are essential and have to keep doing what they’ve always done, including facing all the risks associated with being on the front lines, and there are those whose work is essential but don’t have to be at work in the same way as those other essential workers. I’m also asking that question about those a little closer to home right now as the province moves forward with the back-to-school plan announced Thursday. That line of questioning took me to Maggie Macintosh, our education reporter, who has a stack of government documents on her desk released under the province’s access to information laws. When you flip through the records Maggie obtained about the K-12 COVID-19 Re- sponse Planning Team, what you find is the meetings were all on Zoom. At one level, we shouldn’t be surprised the bureaucracy was relying on video-based conferencing. But at another, why did they have the luxury of avoiding face-to-face meetings when teachers had to meet face-to-face with students in June? And what will it say if those same bureaucrats continue to operate in a Zoom environment when teachers are back in the classroom facing whatever risks emerge without any face masks provided to protect them? In a perfect world, passports would be easy to obtain so we could travel far and wide. In a perfect world, back-to-school should be a time of excitement, not trepidation. Alas, that perfect world is well back in the rear-view mirror. In the meantime, maybe the best we can hope for is that those making the decisions about the essential work that needs to be done start looking in the mirror and asking if it’s maybe time they started to walk the same essential walk instead of just talking it. And I’d invite our provincial and federal politicians to join that reflection, too, as I’m not sure what it says if teachers are back in the classroom each and every day before they are regularly back in their respective legislatures. Tuesday, Aug. 4: Golf at fore front

Our eldest son seems to have got into golf this pandemic. Like me, his beer league hockey season was cut short by COVID-19, but long before I was again able to swing a hockey stick, he was out swinging a club. And his sudden interest in golf meant it was a lot easier to come up with presents for this 23rd birthday in July as everything from a golf glove from his sister to driving-session coupons from his brother and a golf date with his father and uncle all landed nicely on the green for him. As it turns out, our son is far from the only one who has got into golf this pandemic. In fact, golf courses are profiting in ways that would have once seemed unimaginable when it was finally deemed safe to tee off in a spring when viral fears were much more of a threat than any water hazard. Jason Bell made the rounds of local courses and found that after a precarious start, all are primed for a solid finish. Tee sheets are full, memberships are up and junior programs are booming. When you add it all up, city-owned courses such as Kildonan Park, Windsor Park and Crescent Drive are seeing a 17 per cent increase in rounds played as of Monday, compared to a year ago. “It’s not a conversation I thought we’d be having about how good a season it’s been. There was so much uncertainty with health and safety at the forefront. Golf didn’t seem like it should even be part of the discussion at that point.” Golf Manitoba execu- tive director Jared Ladobruk said Tuesday. “But I think it’s turned out so well and it’s one of the sports that has allowed our community to be active, to socialize, to be outdoors, to compete for some and to be recreational for others — and to do it with family and friends. “It’s a miracle that we’re even here. If we’d had that conversation in April, I would have said, ‘No way.’” I’m not sure how much of that increased golf traffic comes from those “working from home” who are managing to find a way to fit in a round during regular business hours. But at this point in the pandemic, any business that has gone from finding a way to survive to then thrive is worth celebrating. Fore!

Aug. 5: Visual guide

My morning radar-screen routine involves an iPhone, a cup of coffee and the comfy chair in our living room. Once I’ve checked our website, then it’s a quick scan of local and national media plus Twitter before landing on the New York Times for a deep dive. But this morning, I was only one thumb-scroll deep into that dive before the NYT made a splash with a remarkable visual guide to understanding the symptoms of COVID-19. Of course, we know that a cough or headache or loss of taste could be a sign of the virus, but increasingly, medical experts are viewing the coronavirus as a multi-organ disease with a much wider range of symptoms. What the NYT has created is a scrolling experience that drives home that point in a way that is both stunning and scary. But at its core, the symptomatic storytelling is simple and understandable. Like the Free Press, the New York Times is making its COVID-19 coverage free for all to access. I thought the least I could do was share what is clearly the best explanation I’ve seen to the questions all of us have likely asked since the pandemic arrived. Check it out. Pass it along to your family and friends. And then promise to do your part by washing your hands and social distancing.

Aug. 6: Cases down, traffic up

Our publisher is a runner, and a pretty serious one at that. If it wasn’t for COVID-19, he would have run marathons this year in Boston, Stock- holm and Berlin along with the 26.2 miles the Manitoba Marathon has moved to the Thanksgiving weekend. But because of COVID-19, the best he’s been able to do is endlessly train on our city streets for an endless number of virtual races. As I said earlier, he is a pretty serious runner. That endless training throughout the pandemic has allowed him to gather a pretty good understanding of the viral impact on traffic — or at least the traffic an early morning runner has to contend with along their route. In first few months of the pandemic, there were hardly any cars in his way to and from Assiniboine Park. But now, even at 6:30 a.m., he’s finding frustration as he has to stop and wait to cross Kenaston Boulevard, which of course, slows him down. As I’ve said twice already, he is a pretty serious runner. That early morning observation led to some questions in my office about the uptick in traffic, especially given that volumes generally fall during the summer holidays. We theorized that the reopening of the Manitoba economy was part of the explanation, but even with us moving closer to the new normal, should there be that much early morning traffic, especially given how many people are still working from home? A good editor always tries to find answers to the publisher’s questions so I returned to the dashboard created by TomTom, an international location technology company that has been collecting anonymous traffic data sets for more than a decade. I refer- enced TomTom’s tracking earlier in the pandemic as it showed exactly how far traffic fell once the first cases of the coronavirus showed up in Manitoba. For instance, average traffic congestion in Winnipeg during the week of April 13 was 61 per cent less compared to the same period in 2019. But since that first mention of TomTom in April, there’s been an ever so slight upward trend in Winnipeg’s traffic volumes. Last week, the average traffic congestion was down only 39 per cent compared to the same period a year ago when we had no idea what COVID was or what it could do. Meanwhile, in the home of the Boston Marathon, traffic congestion was still anything but a problem as volumes were down 62 per cent from the previous year. On the other hand, Boston has recorded 14,377 cases of the virus and 735 deaths as of Wednesday. So, in the age of the coronavirus, fewer cases means more traffic congestion — and potentially slower runs for early morning joggers crossing major arteries. That’s not a bad trade-off, even for a publisher who is a pretty serious runner.

Aug. 7: Hamster trials

Back in the day, my formative years as a student in the St. James-Assiniboia School Division included a classroom with a hamster. I can’t recall exactly what we learned from that hamster, but everyone sure looked forward to their turn to bring that caged classmate home for the weekend. This week, my old school division made headlines as the first in the province to offer masks to students and staff when classroom instruction resumes in September. I’m not sure what that means for whatever hamsters will be in the classroom this fall, but a new science experiment involving the friendly rodents shows an added benefit for the school division’s students and staff. According to Dr. Monica Gandhi, an infectious disease specialist at University of California San Francisco, the hamsters were instrumental in revealing that those wearing masks don’t just protect others from the virus, they also ensure the mask wearer gets less sick if they do end up catching COVID-19. The science experiment didn’t actually involve putting tiny masks on hamsters. Instead, a cage filled with COVID-19-infected hamsters was placed next to one with virus-free hamsters. Between the two cages was a surgical mask partition. What the researchers found was that the simulated surgical mask ensured fewer hamsters caught the virus, and those that did, showed milder symptoms. As Gandhi explains in this video, the science of why wearing a mask protects you comes from its ability to limit the amount of virus that gets into your body. The more of the virus you inhale, the sicker you get. While wearing a mask might not prevent you from contracting the virus, it can ensure your immune system isn’t overwhelmed so that you manage to avoid the worst of its symptoms. Or to put it more bluntly, wearing a mask shouldn’t just be sold as a selfless act that helps protect others. While an appeal to altruism is great, we are at the point in this global pandemic where we need people to be motivated by a selfish desire to protect themselves, too. “Universal masking in public would reduce the death rate as much as a lockdown would,” Gandhi said. “I think if everyone started masking tomorrow, we would rid ourselves of this pandemic in six weeks.” With kids about to return to classrooms in just under six weeks, that’s a treatment we should all think long and hard about. After all, the only thing I want students in my old classroom to bring home this fall is a hamster, not a nasty case of COVID-19.

Aug. 10: Testing the numbers

Sometime later this week, we will reach the point where one in 10 Manitobans have been tested for COVID-19. Or at least the math will suggest that we have reached the point where one in 10 Man- itobans have been tested for COVID-19. But what happens if dividing the number of tests administered by the number of Manitobans doesn’t add up to 10 per cent of the population? To be clear, we won’t suddenly have a hole in our pandemic response, but we might need to realize that some key metrics being used to gauge the province’s response and the current threat to everyone’s public health aren’t wholly on target. And given the current surge in cases, that could pose some problems. At this point, I’m going to bring Michael Pereira into the conversation. In addition to helping process this daily update, Michael is our newsroom’s data journalist. And as the resident number nerd, Michael has been spending a great deal of the past several months immersed in spreadsheets, graphs and a bunch of mathematical minutiae that I can’t begin to understand. But what I can grasp is the potential problems that arise when he points out that the 103,782 tests administered as of Sunday do not mean that 103,782 Manitobans have been tested. Instead, that testing number released as part of the provincial updates reflects the number of tests administered. And in many cases, the same people — truckers, health-care workers and other essential service staff — could have been tested multiple times. Michael has already unearthed some evidence that things don’t quite add up based on figures from the Manitoba First Nations COVID-19 update. According to the latest update, 9,018 tests had been administered, but only 7,870 members of the First Nations community were actually tested. If you extrapolate those numbers province-wide, then you can see there might be a need for some explaining on the testing front. Alas, how multiple tests of the same individuals might affect Manitoba’s positivity rating is not a question that Michael has yet got an answer on from the province, but now that we have more active cases than at any time in the pandemic, one would hope the province wouldn’t be so testy as to not give Michael an answer that we can share with everyone.

Aug. 11: Swift action in Auckland

Auckland is a world away from Brandon. But the gap between how New Zealand’s largest city and the Wheat City are responding to COVID-19 is far greater than the 12,733 kilometres that separates the two. In the case of Auckland, the discovery of four cases in a family home put the city into a hard lockdown for three days while other restrictions were triggered in the rest of the country that had gone virus-free for 102 days. New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern was quick to take the decisive step to limit the spread of the return of the virus from an unknown source as she issued the order that shut down Auckland’s schools and closed restaurants and businesses. “We will be asking Aucklanders to take swift action with us,” Ardern said Tuesday. “These three days will give us time to assess the situation, get information and make sure we have widespread contact tracing so we can find out more about how this case arose and to make decisions on how to respond to it.” Meanwhile, nothing much has changed in Brandon — where the cluster has now spread to at least 64 people — beyond the growing sense of concern and longer and longer lines to get tested. For those of you scoring the pandemic responses in the two cities, consider the fact that Auckland has a population of about 1.6 million. That works out to a per capita positive rate of .25 per cent for 100,000 people. By contrast, Brandon is a city of only 50,000, meaning its per capita rate is 128 per 100,000. I’m not saying that New Zealand is overreacting to the situation in Auckland any more than I’m suggesting that Manitoba is in danger of dropping the ball in Brandon. But the record does show that New Zealand has earned international praise for its viral actions while no one guiding Manitoba’s pandemic response has yet been able to utter the words Maple Leaf Foods in public, even though the meat-packing plant is home to 22 of Brandon’s cases.

Aug. 12: Sturgis rally a superspreader

My favourite pack-everyone-into-the-car summer-vacation destination is South Dako- ta. I loved it as an eight-year-old when my parents took my brother and me down to the Badlands, the Black Hills, Mount Rushmore and Deadwood. I felt like an eight-year-old again when I retraced that journey with my bride-to-be two decades later. And I delighted in watching my eight-year-old son experience that same holiday through his eyes when we took our three children for a truly memorable holiday to those same tourist hot spots. I’ve been thinking of South Dakota this week because of the annual biker pilgrimage to Sturgis. While Sturgis was never on our itinerary — I’m not sure how a slightly rusty Mazda MPV would have been welcomed — you certainly saw no shortage of Hogs on the interstate the closer you got to that motorcycle Mecca. And the closer you got to Stur- gis, the fewer riders you saw wearing helmets. Of course, helmets won’t offer any pandemic protection. And really the best protection for everyone would have been for Sturgis to put the brakes on this year’s gathering. But even though 60 per cent of the town’s residents voted for the rally to be cancelled, the town council decided that the show must go on — because the bikers were going to come anyway. And so the 80th annual Sturgis Motorcycle Rally is now full-throttle with hundreds of thousands of bikers — few wearing helmets or masks — roaring up and down its streets, raising fears it will become a superspreader event. But here’s the thing: while the bikers are still flocking to Sturgis, the manufacturer of that most American of motorcycles is staying away. No Harley-Davidson staff will be in attendance because of a travel ban imposed by the Milwaukee-based manufacturer. “We all need to do our part to help flatten the curve,’’ is the message the maker of Hogs has to its riders.” Many local and federal governments have issued stay at home or shelter-in-place directives. We encourage you to act responsibly and stay up-to- date on U.S. Centers for Disease Prevention and Control, World Health Organization and other regional guidelines.” I know bikers worship their Harleys, so why couldn’t they listen to what their maker is preaching?

Aug. 13: Bending not breaking

The Zoom call at our dining room table last night had our middle son’s track coach breaking down the bad news for NDSU’s cross-country team about the fall season that won’t happen because of COVID-19. “It sucks,” was how the call began, two words that basically said it all to a group that had been running mile after mile for month after month in the belief that the social distancing so central to racing would allow their passion to somehow be spared the looming lockdown on sports within the NCAA. At one level, the news wasn’t a surprise. After all, the only thing consistent about the coronavirus is its ability to ruin things that really matter. Weddings. Grads. Anniver- saries. Lives and livelihoods. But as the call carried on, there emerged a commitment to find a way to carry on, to keep on training, to do the hard work needed so the team would be ready should the starter’s pistol for the indoor track season still months away be allowed to trigger a return to racing. I left the dining room and got in the car to head to my hockey game when a song I hadn’t previously heard from Jon Bon Jovi was playing on the radio. The verses were anything but uplifting: borders being shut, schools being boarded up, towns rolling up their sidewalks, one last paycheque coming through. But then came the chorus I needed to hear about doing what you can and bending, not breaking. The track from the upcoming album was one not only written about the pandemic, but shaped by the pandemic. Jon Bon Jovi took care of the chorus and the first verse but then relied on fans to come up with the rest of the lyrics to capture the hurt, the fears, the uncertainty and the confusion everyone is feeling. There will be no shortage of fear and uncertainty in our home this weekend as our middle son packs up to head back down to Fargo for his third year at NDSU. But I took some comfort that on the day after that Zoom call he headed out into the afternoon rain for another workout to run hard, to run fast.

Aug. 14: Travel frustration

The email from one of our readers contained desperation and data.

“I am frustrated that when I go visit my pregnant daughter in Toronto, I need to quarantine for 14 days but people holidaying in Alberta can come and go freely,” Judy wrote to me. “I don’t care what is decided but it should be equal for both.”

“I keep getting the typical provincial party-line response when I ask the questions. Maybe you can start the conversation.”

The 14-day self-isolation requirement for anyone coming to Manitoba from east of Terrace Bay, Ont. that sticks in Judy’s craw was to have been waived under the province’s phased reopening plan, but that part of the current phase was quickly put on hold last month after huge public outcry.

But that was July. What do the numbers in August suggest is the right course of action?

As Judy’s note pointed out, Alberta’s COVID case count is rising faster than that of Ontario, which has a much larger population. As of Thursday, Alberta had 24 cases per 100,000 people compared to six for Ontario. Saskatchewan was at 14, while Mani- toba was up to 16. I’ll add in that Quebec’s rate was 21, again less than that of Alberta.

And when you step back for a minute and look coast to coast, what you will see is that Manitoba now has the third-highest case count per capita in the land.

So in theory, Judy is right in saying that Manitoba’s rules don’t add up anymore given the current viral state of play. The data suggest that for consistency sake, we should either restore the isolation requirement for those entering Manitoba from the west or waive the 14-day requirement for those, say, flying here from Toronto.

But if we are really going to rely on data to govern travel isolation requirements, we might want to consider a 14-day isolation rule for anyone who has travelled to Brandon. Given that the home of Manitoba’s highest COVID count is now at 90 active cases, Brandon is now a riskier destination than Calgary, Regina or Toronto based on cases per capita.

Aug. 17: #RestartMB

When Brian Pallister stepped up to the line of scrimmage on July 20, the province’s quarterback looked downfield and saw nothing but opportunity. Manitoba’s COVID case count was the envy of many a province and every state in the union. After starting July with a run of days that had essentially made the province free of active cases, Pallister was in the position to go big with a $2.5 million offer to have Winnipeg serve as the hub for the CFL season that suddenly seemed to be in play. Sure there was a nagging issue of a cluster or two on Hutterite colonies, but hey, that was something Manitoba could tackle in much the same way we had flattened the curve. Right? “Manitoba is leading in recovery with a safe plan to restart our economy, which is why we are ready to make another important investment that supports the restart of our economy and invite the CFL to safely play its shortened 2020 season in Winni- peg,” the premier proudly declared on that day nearly a month ago. “We are excited to work with Travel Manitoba and key economic stakeholders to develop our #Re- startMB Event Attraction Strategy that will benefit the entire provincial economy, but in particular, the hardest-hit sectors of tourism and hospitality, namely restaurants and hotels.” That was then, this is now. A province that had but 49 active cases on July 20 has now experienced a string of days where almost that many cases are added to the growing viral tally. Today there are 232 active cases and Manitoba is now tied with Saskatchewan for the dubious distinction of having the second most active cases per capita in the country. Manitoba’s total viral load now stands at 731 since the start of the pandemic — a number almost twice as high as the count when Pallister initially decided to go deep with the CFL. As it turns out, today was also the day the CFL’s board of governors stepped up to the line of scrimmage and finally took a knee. There will be no CFL season. No Winnipeg hub. No Grey Cup. But at least Manitoba will have an extra $2.5 million available to spend fighting a pandemic we have yet to tackle.

Aug. 18: A tale of two cities

We begin today’s update with a tale of two cities. For one, it is the best of times, or at least the best that can happen in a pandemic. For the other, it is the worst of times — at least when stacked up against every other Prairie city with more than 50,000 people. Let’s start with the season of light reflected in Winnipeg’s active case count that shows that as of Aug. 17, there were only 7.74 confirmed occurrences of COVID-19 per 100,000 people. Only Medicine Hat and Airdrie — two much smaller cities than Winnipeg — have a lower per capita case count.

And then let’s move to the season of darkness in Brandon, which has the dubious distinction of being the Prairie city where you stand the greatest chance of contracting the virus. In the Wheat City, the active case count is 154.83 per 100,000 people. That troubling metric has Brandon well ahead of the next worst city for COVID as Edmonton’s rate is 52.27 per 100,000. I’m not sure what the dickens is going on in Brandon beyond the well-documented cluster at Maple Leaf Foods, but what the chart our newsroom has produced makes clear is that we need to start injecting some nuance into how we view this pandemic so we can see the complexities and the variations in its impact. One size fits all clearly works for masks, but that approach only masks the very real challenges now facing cities such as Brandon trying to contain surging case counts. To return again to the opening of A Tale of Two Cities, now is the time for wisdom instead of folly.

Aug. 19: Masks in schools

It was a question she hoped to ask at Tuesday night’s town hall with Dr. Brent Roussin and Education Minister Kelvin Goertzen. But before the town hall on the reopening of the schools began, she sent it my way as she wanted her concerns to be part of the ongoing conversation. “Dr. Roussin, as a physician, you have taken a Hippocratic oath to do no harm, yet at least twice in the official announcement of the provincial school reopening plan, you made it clear that the implementation of cohorts was primarily to enable contact tracing, implying that keeping students and staff safe is not a true priority,” was how Nancy began her draft question. “I have a son with special needs and a severe immune deficiency. Without effective physical distancing at the recommended minimum of two meters, effective ventilation, and mandated masks, the return to school may very well kill him. The Manitoba Human Rights Commission mandates that every child should have access to education in a safe environment, regardless of their individual needs.” Nancy’s argument was as provocative as it was convincing. And little more than 12 hours after that town hall, Roussin and Goertzen had changed course, announcing the move to mandatory masks for those in grades 4 to 12. “I don’t think there has been a bigger emotional issue we have had to deal yet with than the return to school,” Roussin said Wednesday in making the announcement. “Certainly we heard a number of concerns about how to best reduce the risks, certainly masks were a big theme.” As Nancy shared with me today, Roussin’s announcement was “one small step in the right direction.” But it’s a step we saw before after a previous town hall in which public concerns over the scheduled waiving of the 14-day self isolation requirement for those coming into the province from east of Terrace Bay, Ont. forced the government to keep that restriction in place. I have to admit I was initially skeptical of these town halls, worried there would be more politically staged message management than listening to the public. But here we are today with a change Manitobans such as Nancy clearly wanted. So here’s to more town halls and more opportunities for the public to ask questions of the government that has already asked much of Manitobans in this pandemic.

Aug. 20: Settling in

In the early days of the pandemic, there was the fear bred by uncertainty. We didn’t know what was happening. We didn’t understand what the novel coronavirus was or how it would change our world, so we went into defensive mode. We locked down. We stayed home. We loaded up on hand sanitizer, toilet paper and anything else we might need to get us through those scary days of March and April. But in retrospect, those early days really weren’t as bad as the days we are now experiencing. Manitoba’s active case count is higher than it was in the spring. We have had four deaths from the virus in less than a week. And the stubborn cluster in Brandon is no closer to being contained than when it first emerged weeks ago. So why do things appear more normal now than in the spring? Why isn’t there an outward sense of panic from those guiding the province’s response? The answer to those questions is linked to where we are in the pandemic’s learning curve after months spent trying to flatten the curve of active cases. While there is still much we don’t know about the virus, the things we do know mean there is less uncertainty. And less uncertainty means less fear and a better chance at responding to its ever-present threats. That’s what comes from getting through the first 162 days of Manitoba’s pandemic. An article this week in Stat, which is part of Boston Globe Media, is a pretty good primer about what we now know about COVID-19 and the pressing questions that remain. Some key takeaways: • There are safer settings, and more dangerous settings. Essentially, the closer you are to someone infectious and the longer you’re in contact with them, the more likely you are to contract the virus. • There are often lingering effects. Some people don’t feel better for weeks or months, and there are growing concerns that other serious health impacts could be long-lasting. • People without symptoms can spread the virus. Roughly 20 per cent of infected people do not show symptoms at all, but they can still spread the virus. That’s why distance, masks and handwashing are so important. • Viruses on surfaces probably aren’t a major transmission route. There hasn’t been a case recorded where it’s clear someone was infected by germs on surfaces alone. • It’s not clear why some people get really sick, and some don’t. Some factors are clear — age and certain pre-existing conditions — but scientists don’t know why most healthy 30-year-olds shake off the virus after a couple days while others get severely ill. • It’s not yet known if or how long people are protected from re-infection. So far, scientists have not confirmed any repeat COVID-19 cases, but they don’t yet know how long the immune response lasts or how strong it is. I’m not suggesting for a moment that it’s time to relax or that we’re close to figuring out the complexity of this novel coronavirus; instead, let’s just recognize that we are further along in learning to live with this virus, which means we will be better able to deal with the inevitable curve balls it will throw our way when schools reopen in a few short weeks.

Aug. 21: Aggressive testing

Our middle son arrived back in Fargo on Monday. By 11 a.m. Tuesday, he was given the option of either the left or right nostril as he underwent a free COVID-19 test for NDSU students administered by the National Guard. And just before 11 a.m. Wednesday, he got a text that his COVID test was negative, meaning he was welcome back on campus as long as he wore a mask. As a member of the university track team, his next COVID test will be this coming Wednesday as athletes will have to endure the nasal screening tool twice a month. I mention the asymptomatic testing of our son in North Dakota because that’s not the way we roll in Manitoba, at least not yet. The latest update from North Dakota’s Department of Health shows 7,033 tests were administered Thursday, leading to 232 new positive cases and a positivity rate of 3.30 per cent. Since the pandemic began, North Dakota has processed 421,501 tests. By contrast, Manitoba conducted 2,331 tests on Thursday, pushing the total — from a province with a much larger population than that of North Dakota — to 122,291 since we entered the age of coronavirus. The addition of 34 positive cases pushes Manito- ba’s five-day positivity rate up to two per cent. Regular readers of this newsletter know that I am an editor, not an epidemiologist. And for the record, that one biology course I took as part of my history degree means my viral learning curve has been pretty steep over the past several months. But as much as North Dakota has much larger pandemic problems than our province, you have to wonder why that state is investing so much in testing, especially asymptomatic testing. And given the outbreaks now spreading in Brandon and rural areas across the province, I think it’s fair to ask whether Manitoba would have been better able to nip our COVID clusters in the bud if we were testing as aggressively as the state south of us.

Aug. 24: The naked truth

Apparently the naked truth about the coronavirus is that nudity does not lead to immunity. I mention this key development in our understanding of the global pandemic because I knew I could have some pun with it. So the skinny on this outbreak at one of the world’s largest nudist resorts is that a lot of the skinny dippers came away with more than an all-over tan while staying at France’s so-called Naked City. Local health authorities say the outbreak connected to Cap d’Agde Naturist Village has infected nearly 150 people. According to CNN, testing found 95 staying at the naked-friendly resort on the Mediterranean coast had COVID-19 while a further 50 tested positive after returning home. An additional 310 tests are still being analyzed. The naked attraction the resort is famous for has translated into a 30 per cent infection rate for the virus, which is four times higher than that for others in the surrounding area. Of course, the authorities are again reminding nudists to keep a mask on even when they’ve taken everything off. And for the sake of France — which recorded nearly 5,000 new COVID cases on Sunday alone — let’s hope that bit of fashion advice is followed, even by those going au naturel.

Aug. 25: Wipe the smug off

Milestones matter, especially in the age of the coronavirus. And so let it be noted for the record, that on the day Manitoba recorded its 13th death from the pandemic and passed the 1,000 case threshold, the province also became the home of the most active cases per capita in the country. Manitoba’s rate of active cases has now reached 28.67 per 100,000, moving past Al- berta’s rate of 26.56. Neighbouring Saskatchewan’s rate is 8.29 per cent. Now, a less than flat curve doesn’t mean the sky is falling, and as Tom Brodbeck argues in his column, rather than panic, Manitobans should take some comfort that the new colour-coded alert system is working exactly as it should. But the record clearly shows that August has not been kind to Manitoba as over half of the province’s cases have occurred in a month that still has six days left to add even more cases. And if you dig a little deeper, you’ll understand why a province that has been slow to get aboard the mask bandwagon is suddenly seeing an uptick of the face coverings in public. For instance, you might remember viral hotspots such as New York and New Jersey from earlier in the pandemic. Well, the seven-day case count per capita tracking the New York Times uses shows both those states are now better off than Manitoba with rates per 100,000 at 22. None of this is to suggest we would be better off in New York or New Jersey, or heav- en, even Saskatchewan. But if we were prone to being smug earlier in the summer, we better get a new look in time for September.

Aug. 26: Not fade away

There are a few things I remember about what happened six months ago today. The first is pretty easy because Feb. 26 was my 55th birthday. The second is that my beer league team had a game that night that we ended up losing. Oh, and it was Ash Wednesday. But thanks to the Washington Post, I was reminded today marks the sixth-month mark of President Donald Trump’s prediction that the number of U.S. coronavirus cases “within a couple of days is going to be down to close to zero.’’ Half a year later and a hell of a lot deeper into the pandemic, the nation Trump leads is about 5.8 million cases away from hitting his promised land of zero. The Post’s article comes with a video compilation of the 31 times Trump has amplified his assertion that the virus would somehow just fade away. And of those 31 times, the most recent repeat was this week on Aug. 24. When I watch the video and realize the opportunities missed, the mistakes made and the denial of the realities of the pandemic, I suddenly feel much older than 55 and wonder how much better things might have been if Trump had given up lying for Lent.

Aug. 27: Continued frustration

Last night’s briefing triggered an email from one of our American readers who took exception to what he called cheap political sniping about President Donald Trump. John, who has travelled to Canada every year since 1974, was a little confused about my comments as he had gleaned from my writing that I was a “pretty level-headed person.” “Why are you so concerned about what our President says? I do not pay any attention to your politicians,’’ he wrote. “What happened? Are you frustrated with Canada’s terrible death rate?” To help make his point, John noted that Canada’s death rate based on our COVID count was at seven per cent compared to three per cent in the United States. John was correct in referencing the comparable better U.S. performance on death rates, even though there are some statistical differences between how the two countries are accounting for the viral body count. Moreover, John nailed it when he asked if I was frustrated with Canada’s death rate because I am — just as I am frustrated with Manitoba’s death rate, which owing to the 14th fatality announced today, is now at 1.32 per cent. This entire pandemic has been one damn frustration after another between the deaths, the dystopia and the disappointments of lives all too frequently lived on the edge. And sadly, it isn’t just going to fade away any time soon. But among my frustrations is a sense by some on both sides of the border that the pandemic response is some sort of competition. Here in Manitoba, we saw that earlier when Premier Brian Pallister appeared to crow about how well the province was performing compared to the rest of Canada. Today, the per capita active case count that makes Manitoba the nation’s COVID hotspot suggests the premier might be in for a serving of crow. We should all now realize this virus doesn’t differentiate between blue states and red states any more than it cares about the political stripe of any of Canada’s premiers. And as evidenced by the speed with which the pandemic spread, it doesn’t need a visa to move about from one country to the next. So that’s why I am watching what happens both here and afar. That’s why I care about what Boris Johnson, Justin Trudeau, Angela Merkel, Jacinda Ardern and yes, Trump, are saying and doing — or not doing. I pray there will again be a day when we can all move about freely, crossing borders without worry as John has done since 1974 to spend time in our country. But until that day comes, I will remain frustrated. Damn frustrated.

Aug. 28: Two-metre rule outdated

At this point in the pandemic, we all know the two-metre rule of socially distancing. What I didn’t know was the origin behind what has become the gold standard governing efforts to control the spread of COVID-19. And thanks to a new article from The BMJ (originally the British Medical Journal) published this week, I’ve learned that so-called golden rule has a bit of tin ring to it. But that’s what happens when a rule is based on outdated science, as in science that predates the Spanish Flu. In fact, you have to go all the way back to 1897 when studies of droplets from speech, coughing and sneezing led to a proposed safe distance of one to two metres. The BMJ article outlines how problematic that rule is given more recent research that shows how the aerosols we can’t see — those tiny droplets of body fluids believed key to spreading the virus — can travel much further than two metres. For instance, there’s the example of a U.S. choir practice in which one asymptomatic person infected at least 32 others despite social distancing. So what are we to make of this research? The BMJ recommends social distancing be seen as only one part of the public health approach to containing the pandemic. In other words, the two-metre figure is not a magical number that guarantees safety. At the same time, the research recommends a more nuanced approach to social distancing. For instance, we need to look at factors such as risk, ventilation and exposure time. We need to recognize the importance of masks and other protective equipment in various settings. And if we don’t want to end up six feet under, we need to keep washing our hands.

Aug. 31: Zoom boom

Earlier in the pandemic, I talked about how Jeff Bezos saw his wealth rise by US$34.6 billion as lockdowns are apparently very, very good for Amazon’s business model. Not surprisingly, the pandemic has also been a boom to Zoom. Riding the surge of demand for its video-conferencing platform, another of COVID’s corporate beneficia- ries just recorded one of the best quarters in software history. So how good was that second quarter? Well, Zoom started the year with its share price at $68. Now, it’s selling north of $300 and its founder is suddenly worth more than $15 billion. For those of you scoring at home, Free Press usage of Zoom hasn’t quite translated to the same stock surge for our newspaper. We began the pandemic with our share price trading at 31 cents and we are now up to 50 cents. Onward. So good for Zoom, and good for Amazon, too. The pandemic created problems that both have helped solve. But for those still suffering from Zoom fatigue — the psychological fallout from straining your brain during endless virtual meetings — the video chat star’s financial success likely isn’t going to make them feel any better. I suppose one option to get over any lingering Zoom gloom would be to take a break, settle in on the sofa and watch something on Amazon Prime. But then again, that would only make Bezos even richer. Tuesday, Sept. 1: Shifting gears on the bus

I have no idea whether Dr. Brent Roussin was reading the Journal of the American Medical Association today, but the timing of an article about COVID-19 transmission aboard a bus and the latest shifting of gears on mask usage in Manitoba is interesting. First, let’s go to the study published today in JAMA that detailed how a single bus ride in China turned into a superspreader event. In the early days of the pandemic, a single passenger unaware she had the virus boarded a bus as part of a Buddhist worship tour. Within days, 24 of her fellow passengers were infected by what she had been unwittingly carrying, and it mattered little how far away passengers were sitting from her as even those separated by seven rows caught the virus. The study’s conclusion and relevance makes clear the need to consider the potential for the airborne spread of the virus as part of prevention efforts. All of which takes us to today’s release from the province that all school bus passengers in Manitoba will have to wear a mask. The announcement came without elabora- tion and lands a week before the start of classes. And it’s just the latest example of the province’s evolving position when it comes to wearing masks. If the JAMA article about how a third of bus passengers became infected by a single COVID carrier is what prompted the province’s chief medical officer to make the move today, then so be it. Far better that he read it today than sometime later this month after thousands of children have been bouncing along in school buses.

Sept. 2: Back-to-school thoughts

My dear wife’s back-to-school shopping included finding a fancy transparent face mask online that she hopes will not only help keep everyone safe, but also not get in the way of teaching. The mask has a decorative cloth border surrounding a clear plastic window so her early years students and those with special needs can see her smile and pick up on the facial cues so important to communication and understanding. It’s part of her effort to find a pandemic pedagogical approach that works beyond the wing and a prayer about to take flight next week when kids return to class. The province’s slogan, “Restoring Safe Schools,” may sound great, but the reality will likely be something less than that as there is no such thing as a sanctuary from COVID-19 — unless you are in an NHL bubble. There are risks with what is about to happen to our province’s students and their teachers, just as there are risks if we keep schools closed. But when we calculate those risks, when we consider compliance of risk-mitigating measures, do we get things backwards? I’m asking that question tonight because of a diagnosis Dr. Aaron Carroll offered in the New York Times that argued we aren’t very good at discussing the tradeoffs critical in a pandemic. And I’m asking that question tonight because I am really interested in your answers. In his column for the NYT, Carroll makes two key points. The first from the pedia- trician is that we need to stop viewing protective measures as all or nothing. In other words, stop worrying that not everyone is wearing a mask or social distancing the way they should. Instead, we need to see the cumulative benefits of individual actions and how they help reduce the risks for everyone. For instance, we know not every student is going to properly wear a mask on the school bus. Or that not everyone will stay two metres away from their classmates. Or have washed their hands. Or have coughed into their sleeve. But the more that do, the safer our schools will be. Carroll’s second point is that we can’t have it all in the pandemic. If certain activities we deem necessary come with risks, we have to be prepared to restrict other activities to compensate. “From a policy perspective, we’ve been just as unwilling to sacrifice,” Carroll writes. “Almost everyone thinks that opening schools is extremely important (myself included), but too few people have been willing to discuss what we might be willing to shut down to make that happen. If we want to make it safer to send kids back to school, we might need to consider reducing the number of people who can drink in bars or eat in restaurants, for example.” So should casinos be open if we are going to open schools? If kids need to board buses to get to school, should we still be letting people land in Manitoba from Western Cana- da without having to isolate? And if kids have to wear masks in class, should everyone else in public have to do the same because every little bit matters? I know what my wife is doing to help make her students safe. But I want to know what you think about the risks and tradeoffs we should consider to keep our schools as safe as possible. Please share your thoughts with me and I’ll use them as the basis for an upcoming edition of this newsletter.

Sept. 3: Safe sex please, we’re Canadian

I’m always interested in what it takes for Canada to make headlines internationally beyond something to do with hockey. Today, I got another answer to that question from a Washington Post mailing that’s part of my daily COVID content consumption. To wit, this headline that had a certain clickbait quality to it: Consider wearing a mask during sex, Canada’s chief public health officer says. Since it’s too early for Halloween, I did indeed click on the headline to see exactly how the Washington Post had unmasked Dr. Theresa Tam’s advice about the birds and the bees. Apparently, the pandemic has made sex “complicated.” “Like other activities during COVID-19 that involve physical closeness, there are some things you can do to minimize the risk of getting infected and spreading the virus,” Tam said. So kissing is out. Masks are in. Alcohol is problematic. And the least risky sexual activity during the pandemic, according to Tam, involves yourself alone. At this point in the Washington Post’s coverage, I was hoping there was more coming that would arouse something in its readers, even if it was only curiosity about our country. Alas, the story quickly shifted to the number of fatalities Canada had seen so far linked to COVID and a passing reference to an outbreak at a Quebec karaoke bar. And that was that. I worry that after all that buildup, all those American readers and others around the globe were left wanting. But at least there was no mention of hockey.

Sept. 4: No classic this Labour Day

The arrival of Labour Day doesn’t mean that summer is over. But the long weekend always serves as a symbolic bookend to the season-to-be- savoured fading faster than our tans. Like much of life these days, marking the fall of summer won’t be the same. Instead of the excitement of back-to-school, there is trepidation. The morning chill in the air reminds us that we will soon be spending more time indoors, which increases the risks associated with COVID-19. And for those who would have tuned into the Labour Day Classic in Regina or headed to the Banjo Bowl the following weekend, there will only be nothing. We talked to Bob Irving, the longtime radio voice of the Blue Bombers, about that sense of being out of sorts this weekend. For the past five decades, Irving was the one we listened to while enjoying one last taste of summer at the lake or on the deck. With the CFL season now shelved, the silencing of that well-known voice is just another of the casualties of the coronavirus. But that doesn’t mean Irving couldn’t share memories of past Labour Day Classics and more as part of his remarkable career behind the microphone. And in that interview with David Sanderson, that didn’t mean we couldn’t ask if the pandemic means the end of his run as the radio voice of the Bombers.

MIKE DEAL / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Bob Irving has been calling Bomber games since 1974, a year after he started working at CJOB.

“If you’re looking for a scoop, I’m sorry but I’m not going to give you one,” answered Irving. “I just turned 70 and even though I feel pretty good, I have had some health issues over the years that will ultimately play a role in whatever it is I decide to do. Right now though, with the fact the season was only just cancelled a couple of weeks ago, the wound is still fresh. You and everyone else will just have to wait to see what the future holds.” In a sense, that is what we are all doing this long weekend as we wait to see what the future holds in this pandemic. In the meantime, my hope is that much like Irving, you found ways to make the best of a summer we will all never forget.

Sept. 8: Calm before the storm

I sent a note to my daughter’s school principal on Labour Day with the following subject line: The calm before the storm… In that note, I thanked her for all the hard work that had gone on behind the scenes for weeks over the summer to get the school ready as much as possible for today and the uncertain tomorrows to come. But that email to our high school principal was prompted in part by the emails I got from readers when I invited them to share some thoughts about the risks and tradeoffs that should be part of the equation to keep Manitoba’s classrooms open during the pandemic. In notes that numbered more than I could personally respond to, the passion for the issue and the concerns for both students and staff came through loud and clear. As a parent of a school-age child, I read every last one with interest, sharing many of them with my wife who was back at school today in her classroom. As an editor of a major newspaper covering a pandemic, I wish I could pass every last one on to the broader readership of this newsletter. There were some clear themes: More masks everywhere would make schools safer. Tougher travel restrictions on those coming into Manitoba. More support in classrooms by way of resource teachers and educational assistants. And bars and casinos would be on borrowed time if our readers had their way. “I believe sending our children back to school is very important but having said that I do not believe they should be used as an experiment in any way,” Arlene wrote in her note to me. “Children rely on adults to make safe decisions for them and in the midst of this pandemic and worsening numbers we are not doing that very well. The line ‘we have to learn to live with this virus’ is not acceptable if it comes down to putting our children in harm’s way.” In Calvin’s note, he was quick to point out risks existed in school pre-pandemic, too. “If 100 per cent safety from COVID-19 was the requirement, we would continue keeping kids at home, but that scenario holds just too many other negatives for students, especially those who face the challenges of poverty or learning disabilities, or lack parents who are able to assist them in their school work,” he wrote. “Even if safety can’t be completely assured, we must do what we can to make things as safe as reasonably possible. The health and safety protocols being implemented for schools are a critical step, but we can further lower these risks by keeping case counts in our community as low as possible. Keeping these case counts low is the responsibility of everyone in our society, including students, teachers, government, media, business, and citizens in general.” I thought I’d give the last line to Judy who made this prediction in her note about those who ultimately are going to be the ones safeguarding the province’s students: “Teachers will be the newest heroes!!”

Sept. 9: Protecting the herd

Once upon a time in the age before COVID, the return to classes on university campus would have been built around a series of infectious activities designed to inject the student body with school spirit. Today, a return to university classes is all about trying to ensure the study body doesn’t get infected. In most of Canada, post-secondary campuses are virtually student-free as part of new pandemic protocols. However, south of the border, a return to classes has turned colleges into new vectors for the virus. A New York Times survey of more than 1,500 American colleges and universities detected 51,000 new cases last week. But before we start tut-tutting, there are some lessons from the U.S. college experience that might help us here, especially when it comes to testing. So let’s return to North Dakota State University in Fargo where my son has been back in class now for two weeks and has already had two negative tests for COVID-19. At one level, the situation at NDSU doesn’t look good as the latest report revealed 132 confirmed cases on campus. But widespread testing on campus has allowed the university to get ahead of those who might otherwise be asymptomatic spreaders. In the first batch of free testing, 1,664 students and employees were tested and 33 positive cases were discovered. That positivity rate of 2.0 per cent was in line with that of Cass County where NDSU resides. However, the second batch of 1,242 tests that detected 90 positive cases led to a positivity rate of 7.2 per cent. At the time, that rate was higher than the Cass County positivity rate of 5 per cent. “On first blush, this may seem worrying, but please keep in mind that identifying positive cases is actually a good thing,” NDSU president Dean Bresciani said. “First and foremost, it allows people who have tested positive to work with health care providers to get the information and care that they need. Secondly, every person who has tested positive goes into isolation, which helps prevent the spread on campus. This is particularly important for asymptomatic people who aren’t even aware that they are endangering others. In addition, public health officials contact trace each positive case and impacted people are quarantined, further reducing the probability of spread.” As a parent, I appreciate the transparency NDSU is providing about what impact COVID is having on campus. But as a Manitoban, I have to again wonder why our province isn’t taking similar steps to widen its testing funnel to catch more potential asymptomatic spreaders. As it stands now, Manitoba’s asymptomatic rate is 13 per cent. Assuming that rate applies to both students and teachers in the schools now open, how much closer might we be to flattening the curve again if we were able to detect those potential silent spreaders now? At the home of the NDSU Bison, the campus slogan during the pandemic has become Protect the Herd. That seems like a slogan and an approach that would work here, too. Sept. 10: Courage or crassness?

I’ve looked high and low through the province’s phased pandemic reopening strategy and I can’t seem to find any reference to when it will be safe for Celine Dion to take to the stage in Manitoba. And yet, the diva from Quebec has decided that Winnipeg is the port where she will restart the North American portion of her now ironically named Courage World Tour put on hold by COVID-19 in March. In theory, Aug. 16, 2021 is the date Dion and 14,000 of her faithful fans will cram into Bell MTS Place. After Winnipeg, she will then set sail for 16 more cities as part of six-week vocal voyage that wraps up in Pittsburgh. At this point, I am going to refrain from any Titanic references even as you brace for a series of riffs to her greatest hits. “I know how difficult this year has been for so many of us, and we are all looking forward to better days ahead. I want to thank you for being so patient over the past few months while the team has been working on rescheduling our North American dates,” Dion gushed in her tour news release Wednesday. “Finally, we have some news, and I can’t wait to sing and dance with all of you again!” For the record, I would love nothing better if Dion’s concert crystal ball was right and we could all gather safely with nary any social distancing to be serenaded by her in our city. It would mean A New Day Has Come and likely a vaccine. Whether it was the Power of Love or the power of The Prayer, I would not Just Walk Away from a chance to again experience life as Dion and her fans once knew it. And even if meant having to pay $1,263.37 for the floor seat and Diamond VIP package listed on Ticketmaster, I’d gladly report to everyone that I Drove All Night to make it happen. But the last time I looked, Dion got rich by hitting the high notes, not by any great insights on epidemiology, so I’m not marking Aug. 16 on my calendar as the day when we can all Just Walk Away from the pandemic. While on the subject of Dion’s considerable wealth, we might want to consider the announcement of the rescheduling of her world tour means tickets previously purchased for shows postponed during the early stages of the pandemic still won’t have to be refunded. Instead, those tickets will be honoured for the new concert dates just announced. Yes, you read that right: as long as the tour goes on, all those ticket hold- ers in Winnipeg and elsewhere who paid big bucks for a concert they couldn’t attend in the spring will remain out of pocket and out of earshot of Celine for another year. Courage is one name for Dion’s tour. Crass might be more apt at this point in the pandemic.

Sept. 11: Mustering courage

On this morning 19 years ago, I was cycling to the Free Press bureau on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on a day that began with such promise because of one last warm summer kiss the nation’s capital was savouring. But that promise soon became panic when I got to my desk and turned on the TV. In short order, I was kissing my wife goodbye, wishing my son good luck on his first day of kindergarten I was about to miss and jumping into a rental car headed to New York City. The anniversary of 9-11 always brings me back to what I saw first-hand through the plume of smoke rising from Ground Zero. There was silent grief on the faces of the firefighters I interviewed the day after losing members of their ladder company. There was the wide-eyed desperation of those searching for family who had been working in the Twin Towers. And there was the steely resolve of a city refusing to buckle, ready to rebuild as fighter jets kept watch from high above Manhattan. Today was a day to mark that tragedy, but how do you mark that tragedy in the midst of a crisis that has already far exceeded the death toll of 9-11 — and climbs higher every single day? For President Donald Trump, the answer was to celebrate the best that America mustered on that fateful day. “People raced into the suffocating smoke and rubble,” Trump said in his anniversary remarks. “At Ground Zero, the world witnessed the miracle of American courage and sacrifice. As ash rained down, police officers, first responders and firefighters ran into the fires of hell. Today, we honour their extraordinary sacrifice and every first responder who keeps America safe.” Of course, the job of keeping America safe from a silent killer that has already claimed 64 times more American lives than the 9-11 terrorist attacks shouldn’t fall on the shoulders of first responders. It’s a job for a president, senators, representatives, governors and mayors of all political stripes. In the wake of 9-11, there was a remarkable coming together in America. Nineteen years later, is there the resolve to do so again, to muster the courage and sacrifice needed for a deeply divided nation to defeat a deadly virus?

Sept. 14: Unanswered questions

Much earlier in the pandemic’s learning curve, I mused in this newsletter about how long COVID-19 might last. Were we talking weeks or months? What now appears naïve, certainly sounded like a fair question to ask in the first few weeks of life with the virus as Manitobans headed into lockdown mode. Some six months later, the world has passed a milestone that makes clear we have many miles to go before the worst is over. According to the World Health Organiza- tion, a new world record for daily COVID-19 cases was set Sunday when 307,930 cases were reported. Those new cases pushed the total worldwide confirmed count to 28.64 million. The death toll globally hit 917,417. That certainly doesn’t sound like a curve being flattened. “Lives and livelihoods have been lost, the global economy is in recession and social and political fault lines have been exposed,” WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in remarks on Monday. “We are by no means out of the woods.” But how are we ever going to get out of the woods if a sitting U.S. president is holding indoor campaign rallies despite the pleadings of the Nevada governor? What hope is there if health officials in Australia and elsewhere are facing death threats over restrictions designed to stem the spread of the virus? And what does it say if medical staff in Japan have to fight the virus in a hospital and then fight fear and discrimina- tion when they go home to their neighbourhoods? After six months, I’m not afraid to say that I want out of the woods. Now. And after six months, I’m afraid the questions I’m now raising aren’t nearly as naïve as the one I asked in March.

Sept. 15: Messengers matter

My morning Twitter scroll introduced me to the latest weapon New York Gov. An- drew Cuomo is deploying to protect his state from COVID-19. The new public service announcement from the state of New York features Paul Rudd, the 51-year-old star of the superhero film Ant-Man, doing his best to act like a certified young person to deliver a message about masks. “I was talking on the iPhone with my homie, Gov. Cuomo, and he’s just going off about how us millennials need to wear masks because, get this, apparently a lot of COVID is transmitted by us millennials,’’ says the hoodie-wearing, skateboard-clutching Rudd. “So Cuomes asks me, he’s like, ‘Paul, you’ve got to help. What are you, like, 26?’” Rudd says in the video. “And I didn’t correct him. So, fam, let’s real-talk. Masks, they’re totally beast. So, slide that into your DMs and Twitch it.” Rudd’s performance is clever in an over-the-top kind of way, and at this point in the pandemic, we likely need more of these performances. “You know, my frustration is younger people. College kids coming back to college, they all want to have a party, they all want to drink,” Cuomo explained today. “Younger people at protests, they’re not wearing their masks, they think they’re invincible. So, for months the great challenge is how to get to young people. I call up Paul Rudd, and I’m a big fan of Paul Rudd, I had met him at an event. I call him up and I said, ‘You know, can you do a PSA, a video, that really gets to young people?’ And he’s respectful, he’s listening to me, ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah I can do that.’ I said, ‘You know you’re funny. I think humour might do it,’ because I’ve tried everything. I’ve begged, I’ve pleaded, I’ve threatened. I don’t know what else to say. So, Paul Rudd says, ‘Yeah, I can do it.’” In just 24 hours, Rudd’s message has gone, well, viral, attracting nine million views. Rudd isn’t the first celebrity to be deployed to help fight the pandemic. In Au- gust, B.C. Premier John Horgan turned to homegrown star Ryan Reynolds and Seth Rogan to use comedy to help combat the coronavirus. I’m not sure what celebrities Premier Brian Pallister might be able to draw upon, but it can’t be all up to Dr. Brent Roussin and his oft-repeated mantra about the fundamentals of washing your hands and social distancing. At the same time, we need to recognize we have the same problem here that Cuomo was complaining about in New York. Take a look at the demographic trends behind Manitoba’s COVID count. As it stands now, those in the millennial cohort are the chart toppers. For women, the highest proportion of cases are those aged 20-29. For men, it’s those aged 30-39. In a pandemic, messages matter. So do the messengers. We might need something here we can slide into our DMs and Twitch it.

Sept. 16: Ready, set, write

Full disclosure: I’m taking a page from the New York Times for today’s introductory comments. And the good idea I’ve borrowed from the NYT was inspired by Six-Word Memoirs, which in turn, was rightly or wrongly influenced by Ernest Hemingway. If you’re still able to follow the plot, (urban) legend has it that Hemingway was the Papa of the power of literary compression when he wrote this story in just six words: For sale, Baby shoes, Never worn. In the midst of the pandemic, the New York Times picked up on that that narrative device to run a collection of six-word memoirs of COVID-19. To give you a sense of how small stories can make a big impact, here’s a sampling of the prose generated by that invite to make sense of this moment in history: • Not a criminal, but running masked. — Stella Kleinman • Can’t smell the campfire on Zoom. — Melanie Abrams • This is what time looks like. — Sylvia Sichel • Avoiding death, but certainly not living. — Sydney Reimann • The world has never felt smaller. — Maggie Smith • Cleaned Lysol container with Lysol wipe. — Alex Wasser So my invite to you is to pen your own small story about the big story dominating all our lives. Send me your six words and I’ll share them with readers of this newsletter. To help set the table, here’s one I wrote, followed by short stories from Brad Oswald, our editorial page editor, and Jill Wilson, who writes and edits our arts section: • Handwashing, handwringing but no hand holding. • The roar of the crowd, silenced. • Aeroplan points have never meant less. On your mark, get set. Write!

Sept. 17: Six words can say so much

I’ve written about 125 of these newsletter commentaries since COVID-19 slipped into our province during the Ides of March. And now, thanks to readers of this nightly update, I’m finally getting a break as we are going to fill this space with the six-word pandemic prose sent my way. Minutes after Wednesday’s mailing landed in inboxes both near and far, the responses starting pouring in to my invite to capture your viral memoirs in only six words. Even though each oeuvre was limited to half a dozen words, there were more than we can possibly fit into one mailing. So we will start with Vol.1 of our novel coronavirus compressed novels today while Friday’s mailing will feature Vol. 2. Again, thank you so much for taking the time to respond to the literary challenge and for the kind comments you keep sending my way. And without further ado, here’s what was said in six: School’s out. School’s in. School’s out. — Sandra Gratton Coffee, phone call, emails, nap, gin? — Marie-Josée Chartier Work school gym shop party home. — Dean Jenkinson CoVid. Care Home visits prohibited. Loneliness. — Shelby Neill Brave New World, not by choice. — Jeff Wach Virtually working, virtually meeting, virtually alone. — Calvin Brown Instructing 100 amazing students no classroom. — Wanda Daza Quiet. Thought. Meaning. Time. Beauty. Wonderment. — Adrian Powell Be kind. Be safe. Be patient. — Lori McKietiuk Looking for smiles, coming up short. — Scott McPherson Six feet apart. A world away. — Tammy Marlowe Johnson Biked through Europe without leaving home. — Rob Kashin Freeze, listen, scurry, dart, rabbit hole. — Diane Plamondon Still working. Keep those groceries moving. — Kevin McKenty Should I... always on my mind. — Diane Robert Out of rice, flour, beans, TP. — Suzanne Danis Kawa For sale: Comfy mask, never worn. — Hugo Page Waiting on the world to change. — Tracy Proutt Hello world, aka Zoom Gallery view. — Elizabeth Cockle We rise. We are never defeated. — Kristyn Cain Our eyes. Fearful. Only kindness matters. — Sandi Cain Zero like minus two; thanksgiving isolation. — Elizabeth Filipowich Anti mask, vaccine, hygiene, science. Uncle. — Roger Spelmer “Lost people. Gained nature and silence.” — Theresa Johnson

Sept. 18: More pandemic prose in six words

In theory, I should be doing tonight’s update intro in only six words. But I don’t think I can properly summarize the creative outpouring to the literary challenge we issued in just six words. (To read yesterday’s submissions, click here.) You’ve been humorous, hopeful and haunting. You’ve expressed fears, frustrations and fury. In doing so, we understand more. When I think of all the words our newsroom has written about the pandemic, all the words I’ve read elsewhere about what we’ve all been through, it’s easy to be overwhelmed. But the power of six means you say a lot without overpowering the reader. What you wrote was easy to consume in the midst of the pandemic that has been all consuming. So thank you for writing. Thank you for sharing. And now, on to Vol. 2 of your pandemic prose: Too many memes. Too little time. — Michele Casey Who or what to believe, anymore? — Rick Horocholyn When cabin fever met Spring fever. — Mark Jeffery Pandemenium: confused, frightened uproar, without people. — Teryl Flette Lying awake, corona virus, wildfires, Trump. — Frances Cholakis Travel on hold, staycations now rule. — Janis Arnold Stay close, but stay away. — Gord Gibben No Corona concern at protest gatherings. — Sheri Taylor Lewis Grandchildren, hugs, before. Memories, photos, now. — Yvette Beaudry Human race divided, together with Plexiglas — Margaret Koniuck Holding on to holding onto grandkids. — Sande Harlos Please be kind to each other. – Garry Shopping is not a pastime anymore. — Teresa Leathwood Being apart but feeling a part. — Drew Perry A calendar blank with empty days. — Lesley Can’t visit but closer than ever. — Lionel Zelicz Constant Sanitizing, but Never Germ Free. — Y. Poirier Everybody wore masks. Except the bandit. — Jerry Butler Introverts avoiding group activities without guilt. — Kornelsen Arms empty hanging useless without hugs. — Dorothy Keizer All in this together; masked isolation. — Jay Ross Virtual hug received but not felt. — Randall Klaprat Where have all the smiles gone? — Paul McLeod No place to go but In! — Sister Darleane Pelechaty Bye Mom, bye travel, hello home. — Susanne Leslie So close, and yet so far. — Greg Lupal We are in this together separated. — Candace Goossen Trump is a hollow sleepless Mephistopheles. — Brian MacKinnon To mask or not to mask. — Paul Betts Dr. Tam guide to single sex. — H. Bagnall Fares saved up, nowhere to go. — Glen Vincent What are we waiting for? — Sandi Ferguson Church on line, losing my religion. — Gayle Knutt Waiting, washing, wishing, walking, worrying, wondering. — Lois Edwards Feeling anxious, panicking reading the news. — Eileen Curtis New oxymoron. Social distancing. It sucks. — Rudy Buller It is so real, this unreality. — Noelle Friesen Normal maybe gone but not forgotten. — Shelley Carlin Separation unmasks our need for touch. — Amanda Le Rougetel Healthy and grateful for another day. — Tammy Melnyk Walking the dog is getting boring. — Pam Bidewell Daily dog hugs help our sanity. — Jean A Paterson Never a better time to read. — Dave Williamson The woodpecker knows nothing about virus. — Howard Miller Heart-wrenching, head shaking, hitting mute. — Edythe Lucas Leaders deny, lie, justify, people die. — Ivan Balenovic Grandchildren. Can’t see them. So sad. — Sandy Glass Doctors cannot see forest for trees. — Gerald Machnee Pandemic regulations. Resistance is futile. — Sheldon Glass The government’s making plans. I’m not. — Danielle Kayahara Can’t go into bank without mask. — Barbara Nichols Cheap gas but nowhere to go. — Jasmin Paola Metre distance? Feels like a kilometre. — Linda Mlodzinski Outside burning; inside burning with rage. — Patricia Bradshaw Online teaching sucks. Missing my students. — Debra Lovelace My new perfume: Eau de Sanitizer. — Leslie Stokoloff Today’s greetings: No handshake, hugs, kisses. — Olatunde Akoleowo In 2020, only plan B works. — Barb Boucher The world according to Covid. Paused. — Shirley Augustine Happy, sailing along, sudden tears, surprised. — Mary Kay Boguski Learned to cook. Experimented. Enjoyed. Full! — Donna Eastoe Humans restrained yet nature set free. — Diane Harri Physically healthy, but sick of myself. — Amelia Warkentin Toilet paper panic! Go, no go! — Ruth Enns Gramma, isolated, first-floor window, grateful. — Toni Bond That swab just tickled my brain. — John Rempel Wait watch remember live love laugh. — Karen Bowman God for us, who against us? — Sarah Hildebrandt White dress, rings: dreams! SARS-CoV-2. Destroyed. — Marie Tichborne Masks are for heroes, not bandits. — Jason Denbow Quoth care-free adventure seeker, “Nevermore.” — Brandi Shabaga At least there are no zombies. — Heather Armstrong Don’t fool with Mother Nature again. — B Nichols Stay vigilant... strong... kind... hopeful... together. — R.Brownlee Border closed, no Robin Hood flour. — Thelma Doppelhammer Six feet under. Six feet apart. —Victor Enns Six feet apart, six feet down? — Randy Hull Social distancing. So near. Too far. — Linda Schroeder Never been more together being apart. — Holly Dunphy Pull up your mask you ass$&@! — Kristin Tataryn But it fogs up my glasses. — Kristin Tataryn No mask. No MasterCard. No meal. — Lorna Wenger We must support local business. Please. — Ken Penner

Sept. 21: Kooky conspiracies

I’ve been paying a lot more attention to the Fargo Forum these days. That’s what happens when you have a kid attending school at NDSU in a state that is the hottest hotspot for COVID-19 in the United States. At any rate, my morning read landed on this story from today’s Forum: Report says North Dakota ranks high in the nation for COVID-related conspiracy theories. Great. As if things weren’t bad enough. Please adjust your tinfoil hat for the rest of tonight’s newsletter opening commentary. According to a data analysis of keyword searches from MedicareAdvantage.com, the state just south of us ranks fifth in the land for buying into coronavirus conspiracy theories. Turns out, North Dakota’s preferred explanation for the global pandemic is, wait for it, the “Bill Gates conspiracy theory.” For those of you who’ve been paying more attention to social distancing, hand washing and mask wearing, there’s apparently a few too many who subscribe to the view that Microsoft Man either started the coronavirus or is using the pandemic to implant microchips into our bodies. If only it was so simple. I’m not sure why suspicious minds choose to focus on imagined threats rather than the one in our midst that science has documented. Maybe it’s easier to blame Bill Gates or 5G towers or whatever other hokum is ricocheting around the web than to face the truth of this pandemic — and maybe don a mask. But the facts as released today from the North Dakota Department of Health is that the state added 287 more positive tests to set a new high for active cases at 3,210. By comparison, Manitoba added just 22 new positive tests to push the province’s active case count to 363. Random thought: could anyone in the conspiracy theory camp please explain why Bill Gates favours Manitoba more than North Dakota? At this point in the pandemic, what North Dakota — and all of us, for that matter — needs is less noise and nonsense. The virus is already spreading fast enough without viral disinformation campaigns making things much worse. Sept. 22: Restoring balance

At 8:30 this morning, we officially entered the fourth season of COVID-19. What slipped into Manitoba amid the snow and cold of the dying days of winter, picked up pace in the spring only to give us a brief holiday in summer, has now made it to fall. The problem now is the number of cases isn’t falling, and in too many places, the numbers are surging. “No country is safe,” Jennifer Nuzzo, an epidemiologist at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security told the Washington Post today. “No country at this point can ever relax and assume the worst is behind them.’’ I’d like to think that at this point in the pandemic, we’ve all learned the dangers of making any assumptions about the virus. Moreover, the cold reality of the pandemic is that the epidemiological forecast isn’t kind as the temperatures dip and we end up spending more time indoors. But on this glorious first day of fall that saw the mercury nudge 30 C, I don’t want to say anything to take away from the shine of what has been a much-needed blessing for all of us. In the past six months, there have been no shortage of dark days, and no doubt there will be more to come. My hope is that you found some way today to enjoy what the sun gave us as it passed directly over the equator. From a celestial standpoint, it is a day of perfect balance as equinox comes from the Latin word equinoxium, meaning equality between day and night. From a pandemic standpoint, a day like this with the power to restore some balance in our lives means even more.

Sept. 23: Another tradition cancelled

With the end to this annus horribilis now just 100 days away, what might the New Year bring us? While I worry it will be more of the same, the way we end 2020 will definitely be different than the way it began as we gathered at parties blissfully unaware of what was spreading from Wuhan. The latest shoe to drop because of COVID-19 comes from those who run the annual Times Square New Year’s Eve ball drop. The iconic tradition that began in 1907 has fallen victim to the pandemic as it will instead be a virtual celebration with scaled-back and socially distanced live elements still to be determined. In other words, get ready for Times Square and the ball to come to you digitally no matter where you are. “More than ever in these divided and fear-filled times, the world desperately needs to come together symbolically and virtually to celebrate the people and things we love and to look forward with a sense of renewal and new beginnings,” Tim Tompkins, president of Times Square Alliance, which co-produces the event with Countdown Entertainment, announced today. I’m not sure what a virtual world of Times Square will look like on Dec. 31, but then again, I was never quite sure why New Year’s Eve celebrations in Winnipeg needed to take its cue from a time-delayed broadcast no longer live from New York. I doubt I’ll be turning to my phone as midnight approaches on Dec. 31 to watch a virtual ball drop. But I do pray I will be able turn to family and friends to celebrate with a cup of kindness and wish for better days ahead in 2021.

Sept. 24: A virus walks into a bar

So if a virus walks into a bar… That really isn’t the start of a joke, unless, of course, you are increasingly concerned that part of the response to the realities of this pandemic is a joke. So before we get to the bar, let’s flip back through the calendar and pick a date. Any date. How about May 2 when a 29-year-old man went bar-hopping in Seoul? Turns out he later tested positive for COVID-19 — along with 100 others who bumped into him at five bars and clubs in the South Korean city’s nightlife district. Let’s go to a CNN report from June 17 in Florida where 16 friends celebrating a birthday at a bar all came home with COVID-19. Or closer to home, check out this headline from Aug. 27 when Ontario Premier Doug Ford warned students returning to college to “cool your jets with the partying.” In all these cases and more, the record was clear about how the closed confines of bars and restaurants were prime pick-up joints for the coronavirus. In all these cases and more, Manitoba had the benefit of time on its side — the one great advantage afforded a province that got invited to the pandemic later than pretty much everywhere else. In other words, we could see what was happening. We could learn. We could adjust. At least in theory. And yet, on this late day in September, here was Dr. Brent Roussin finally putting on his stern teacher voice to issue a public health education about what happens when serving pints in pubs in a pandemic. “We’ve had a number of cases that have visited more than one bar in a single evening and reports are of crowding and many people in attendance,” Manitoba’s chief public health officer said. I guess that’s what happens when the hangover reveals half of the new infections in the city — which has 364 active cases — are connected to bars, pubs and restaurants. “That’s a staggeringly high number of people who were at these sites during their (virus) acquisition period,” Roussin said. “We’ve had cases attend more than one bar in an evening while symptomatic — one of which had 36 contacts.” I don’t fault Roussin for being cross, but should anyone really be surprised given what happened earlier in bars and restaurants elsewhere? Maybe his lecture will work. But if it doesn’t, we need to start adjusting the mix of what is open and what isn’t. And soon. For instance, we know schools need to be open. But if keeping bars and restaurants open threatens to close schools, then what? Do we close bars and restaurants? Do we restrict hours? Do we step up enforcement? Do we shut down those that can’t follow the rules? I’m not saying I have the answers, but I am saying that when I need a drink, I’ll be doing my part by having it at home.

Sept. 25: From yellow to orange

My morning run along the Harte Trail featured a wonderful burst of yellow and orange as the fall canopy came alive in the warming rays of another summer-like day. A few hours later, Winnipeg’s move to orange from yellow on the province’s pandemic threat level made for a day far less wonderful. A day earlier, Dr. Brent Roussin signalled the troubling trend in the rise of COVID-19 cases might put family Thanksgiving gatherings at risk. But I’d suggest worries about who to uninvite for your turkey dinner — and for that matter, what to wear while trick-or-treating — should be put on the back burner for good so we can focus on what really matters. I’m pretty sure our wants at this point in the pandemic are pretty similar: something closer to the normal we once knew, something that gives us hope that better days are ahead, some proof that earlier sacrifices weren’t in vain. At the same time, no one wanted our city to move into the orange restricted zone. But to get what we all want, we all have to give, and for some reason we haven’t yet figured out that key equation. As I have asked before, what are we prepared to give up to get what we want? Ontario just announced it’s closing all strip bars and will limit hours at bars and restaurants to slow the spread of the virus. I suppose that’s a step. But with Canada’s COVID case count now reaching past 150,000, we are all going to have to give a lot more if we want the virus to take less from all of us. Here in Winnipeg, we have 28 days to do what we need to do to get back more of what we want. I hope we are all up to the challenge.

Sept. 28: Keep calm and carry on

My niece goes to university in Leeds, England. Thanks to COVID-19, that means she is now in lockdown — just like the other 12.5 million people across the country whose lives are now further complicated by the latest restrictions aimed at stemming the spread of the virus. And if that isn’t bad enough, it’s an open question whether she and tens of thousands of university students will be allowed to go home this Christmas to spend time with their families. Last, week, Health Secretary Matt Hancock declined to rule out asking students to stay on campus over Christmas after a government scientific adviser said the measure may be needed to stop the virus spreading to older relatives. And then, Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden offered this rather than a guarantee that students could be home for the holidays: “I very much want students to be able to go home at Christmas, and if we all pull together and observe these new rules, we follow the guidance, then we will be able to get to a point where that should be possible.” And to think that we have it tough here on Day 1 of the new restricted code orange level in Winnipeg. I was thinking of my niece and her family this weekend, especially when I was reminded that the United Kingdom’s death toll from the virus now exceeds that of the Blitz. My love of wartime history means I’ve spent hours in London’s museums following the steps of Winston Churchill from the cabinet war rooms to the House of Commons to the plaque in Westminster Hall marking where he lay in state a month before I was born. I don’t know if my niece would be better off if Churchill was leading the country’s current war effort, but my guess is it couldn’t possibly be worse than what’s being offered by Boris Johnson, the Churchill biographer now residing in No. 10 Downing Street. For now, all I can do is urge her to keep calm and carry on. Sept. 29: Your stories

This isn’t the first time I‘ve turned to the community that has grown around these nightly updates and now numbers more than 100,000 strong. And I promise it won’t be the last. So here’s tonight’s request: We want your help to deliver stories that really get at what the pandemic is doing to our lives. COVID-19 has touched every single one of us and that means each of us has a story worth sharing. We have award-winning writer Melissa Martin ready to take those experiences and weave them into features that resonate and serve as a lasting record of this unprecedented time in our lives. We’ve created a short and simple form that you can fill out here so Melissa can get going on this assignment, Melissa looks forward to speaking to as many of you as possible, and I am sure you can’t wait to read what she produces for our readers on all our platforms.

Sept. 30: Confusing restrictions

Tonight’s newsletter is going to start with an AA meeting, move to a pub in England and then, after a short stop at the British House of Commons, land at the Manitoba Legislative Building. In other words, please fasten your seat belt and ensure all carry-on luggage is safely stowed. As of Monday, the code orange governing life in Winnipeg means any Alcoholics Anonymous meetings can’t involve more than 10 people; meanwhile, it still green lights 100 people getting drunk at a bar. Bar-hopping, you might recall, is a big reason we are now in the orange restricted zone. Confused? Well, you’re not alone. Such is reality of the various public health orders designed to help stem the spread of COVID-19. No one is denying the importance AA has played helping people battle addiction during the pandemic, but its meetings are governed by a separate public health order than the one overseeing what happens and doesn’t happen in bars and restaurants. For the time being, AA will have to manage with smaller groups or spend more time on Zoom. But if you find that discrepancy maddening, then zoom on over to England for a taste of confusion British Prime Minister Boris Johnson added to his country’s lockdown rules this week. According to Johnson, the ban on households mixing did not extend to pubs. That was until he realized he got it completely wrong and was forced to apologize and clarify that pints in a pandemic at the pub with the neighbours weren’t a lockdown exemption. In short order, Johnson was under fire yet again in the House of Commons as you can see here in this link. Meanwhile, any concerns over public health orders and the various discrepancies surrounding code orange in Winnipeg have yet to hit to the floor of the Manitoba legislature, which isn’t scheduled to resume sitting until Oct. 7. Say what you will about Johnson, but at least he’s had to face the music in Parliament for much of the pandemic. Here in Manitoba, it will have been more than four months since Brian Pallister has had to do likewise. If that fact drives you to drink, please do so in moderation as AA meetings are limited to no more than 10 people. Thursday, Oct. 1: Trump driving an ‘infodemic’

Another day in the pandemic, another headline critical of U.S. President Donald Trump and his handling of the virus. But tonight, I want to go beyond the latest criticism of Trump to look at what the headline-driving study had to say about the media’s performance in the pandemic. And as you might expect, it’s far from perfect. Before turning to the critical look at my industry, let’s start with the central finding of the research from Cornell University, which claims to be the first comprehensive survey of misinformation about COVID-19 in the media landscape. Between Jan. 1 and May 26, over 38 million articles in English-language media around the world were studied with an eye to what the World Health Organization has termed an infodemic of misinformation. “We found that media mentions of U.S. President Donald Trump within the context of COVID-19 misinformation made up by far the largest share of the infodemic,’’ the report says. “Trump mentions comprised 37.9 per cent of the overall misinformation conversation, well ahead of any other topics. We conclude that the President of the United States was likely the largest driver of the COVID-19 misinformation ‘infodemic.’” At one level, that’s not surprising, given Trump has been peddling everything from hydroxychloroquine to ingesting disinfectant as a way to help make the virus just go away. But what is surprising, and concerning, is the degree to which the report suggests the majority of COVID-19 misinformation is “conveyed by the media without question or correction.” For most of us in the media, this is our first pandemic, so we’ve been doing our best to navigate a steep learning curve. Our newsroom has debated how to handle the competing views about the utility of wearing masks, how much ink to give the claims of anti-lockdown protesters and, well, yes, what to do with the latest viral spew from the mouth of the U.S. president. But clearly, we all need to do better — because the stakes are high, as evidenced by the lessons of the last pandemic. “In previous pandemics, such as the HIV/AIDS outbreak, misinformation and its effect on policy was estimated to have led to an additional 300,000 deaths in South Afri- ca alone,’’ reminds the Cornell report. “If similar or worse outcomes are to be avoided in the present COVID-19 pandemic, greater efforts will need to be made to combat the infodemic that’s already substantially polluting the wider media discourse.”

Oct. 2: Waiting for our queue I hate waiting in lines. And while I haven’t yet had to get a COVID test, I can only imagine what it’s been like for thousands of Manitobans stuck in hours-long queues before the deep nasal swab could be administered. As our reporting has made clear in recent days, the long-promised increase in testing capacity isn’t just around the corner, so we are doing what we can to help those wondering how long it is going to take to get a test. It would be nice if provincial officials were posting wait times at the various centres to better inform the public, but since they’re not, we are filling the void. We’ve created a COVID testing wait time tracker that will allow you to get a better sense of how much time you›ll need to set aside before you get into line. If you’re in line for a test, share your estimated wait using our easy form, located at wfp.to/covidwait. It takes just a moment — you only need to report your location and wait time. If you’re planning to go for a test, visit wfp.to/covidwait to see wait times fellow Winnipeggers have reported. We hope this will help you choose a site where you›ll spend the least time in line. The more people use the tracker, the more accurate it will be. Please share the link far and wide so we can get the best data possible to make things easier for Manito- bans waiting to get a COVID-19 test. We will keep the tracker on our website so everyone can access it free of charge before heading out for a COVID test.

Oct. 5: No epiphany for Trump

We’ve all heard the old maxim that we should never discuss politics or religion at the dinner table. But since this newsletter comes out after dinner, we should be OK. So here goes… There are many, many things U.S. President Donald Trump could have said when he took to Twitter this afternoon to announce he’d be leaving hospital Monday evening. Unfortunately, instead of doing the right thing, this was his discharge from Walter Reed Medical Centre: “Feeling really good! Don’t be afraid of Covid. Don’t let it dominate your life.” Whatever has happened to Trump amid the confusion, the contradictions and the crazy since he was airlifted to a hospital bed Friday night as part of his viral treatment, it’s clear a near-death experience was not part of the record. No epiphany. No learning. No messaging that might actually save lives. Just a bully at his bully pulpit urging his country to be unafraid of a virus that has already claimed more than 210,000 lives and continues to spread though his White House. There are many who have been praying for the president to make a speedy recovery in recent days. There’s his presidential challenger, Joe Biden. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, too. But I’m going to give the final word to a Catholic priest who kept Trump in his prayers since Friday as his tweet beat me to the punch on the sheer recklessness of Trump’s message. “Don’t be afraid of Covid?” asked James Martin, the Jesuit editor at large of @Ameri- camag. “Perhaps if one has access to a team of physicians, experimental treatments, and a four-room hospital suite (as well as doctors at home). But for everyone else, take every precaution against the disease that has already killed 1,000,000 people worldwide.” Amen to that.

Oct. 6: Reporter, cover thyself

If the White House isn’t immune to COVID-19, then I really shouldn’t be surprised that neither is our newsroom. So, here’s some viral news of our own: Jason Bell has moved from helping us cover the story of our lives to becoming part of the story with a diagnosis over the weekend that has upended his life. The only positive news from Jason’s positive test is that he contracted the virus while taking a well-deserved break from work. In other words, no one at the Free Press has had contact with him for more than two weeks. And since he is confined to his basement and following all the required health protocols, no one else is at risk. But Jason being Jason, the infection hasn’t stopped him from working remotely. To- night, he will be helping us cover the NHL draft. Earlier, he finished up a column that shares his thoughts now that he is living with COVID rather than simply reporting on it. Please take a few minutes to read his personal pandemic perspective, but here’s a taste of what he wrote: “I, like my Free Press co-workers, have been writing about coronavirus for months, in my case sharing stories of athletes whose lives have been disrupted during the pandemic. Olympic dreams postponed, championships cancelled, entire seasons erased. Most memorably, I spoke with two NHLers, Ottawa Senators forward and Roblin product Jayce Hawryluk (a one-on-one interview) and Winnipeg defenceman Anthony Bitetto (media availability during the Jets’ pre-playoff training camp) about their seemingly inconceivable diagnoses. Both fellows mentioned the jarring impact of being stricken with the same virus — albeit in its tempered form — that continues to claim thousands of lives each day around the world. A sobering sentiment, indeed, but one I now understand.” Like all of us at the Free Press, I wish Jason weren’t in the position of having to share what he is now living. And like the rest of our newsroom, I wish him a speedy recovery.

Oct. 7: Not out of the woods yet

In the early days of the COVID-19, when I was still trying to get my head around how a curve gets flattened, I wrote in one of these bulletins about what it means to be in the peak of the pandemic. The key takeaway I shared with readers was to understand the law of viral gravity. As I did on April 19, I will let Dr. Joshua Epstein, an epidemiology professor at NYU’s School of Global Public Health, take care of the lesson in disease models: “They all rise to a peak and then descend after the peak and typically in real epidem- ics and in those curves, half of the transmission happens after the peak. I think a lot of people are really misunderstanding what it means to be at the peak of the pandemic,” Epstein said on NPR. “Typically the peak of the epidemic is the midpoint of the epidemic. You are not out of the woods. You are in the very heart of the woods.” While I now realize the folly of making any predictions about COVID-19, I suggested then what it might mean for Manitoba in terms of case counts and death tolls before we were out of the woods. As Manitoba is now marking the deadliest day of the pandemic, it’s painfully clear we are still trapped in the woods. The addition of three more deaths – the largest single-day jump in viral-linked fatalities — pushed Manitoba’s body count to 27. Not that you need more to worry about, but here’s something keep in mind when you reflect on where we were in mid-April before lockdowns were eased and where we are now: in the past eight days we have had more deaths than we did in the first 40 days of the pandemic. The math shows there have been seven fatalities since Sept. 29. Back on April 19, we had recorded just five. I was dead wrong in the spring when my reading of an apparent peak in the pandemic here meant the downside of the curve had us on a trajectory for five more deaths. I don’t even want to contemplate how deadly the curve might be for us now given how many lives have been lost in little more than a week.

Oct. 8: Accept reality — and deal with it

Right around the time I start to worry in the late afternoon about what I am going to write in this daily note to you, a package arrived on my desk. There was a bright red shirt in a plastic bag and a two-page typed letter addressed to me that expressed disappointment in my apparent bias against the “greatest modern-day president and true leader the U.S.A. has ever had in Donald J. Trump.” The wide-ranging rant took me to task for overstating the threat of COVID-19 as well as my “left-wing media meltdown” in this nightly newsletter over the way this “great president” made our front-page headlines look “foolish.” Having unloaded on me over pandemic coverage, the litany then took shots at the mainstream media, the value of Fox News and the way fake news overlooks the facts that prove Trump is the “least racist president of our time.” As for the gift of the red shirt, it came with the following message in white letters: Message from a Canadian Keep Calm America And TRUMP On 2020 While the gift giver and letter writer wished me all the best, they never included their name, making it impossible to respond directly to them or to thank them for their time. So I will instead use this newsletter to acknowledge the surprise present and to respond to the concerns raised about our coronavirus coverage. The virus isn’t political. It isn’t partisan. It infects and kills whenever and wherever it can. The White House isn’t immune. Nor is No. 10 Downing Street. And as of this week, neither is our newsroom. We can pretend. We can ignore. We can blame others. Or we can accept reality and deal with it. As I’ve been in the reality business for all my working life — as opposed to a reality-TV show such as The Apprentice — disregarding the facts of COVID-19 is as foolish as trying to escape the laws of physics. We know masks can save lives. We know masks should be worn — especially if you’ve just tested positive for the virus and are potentially a superspreader. We know that most medical experts don’t recommend someone being airlifted home a day or so after receiving oxygen and an experimental cocktail of drugs. There are no two sides to any of the above, just as there are no two sides to climate change. The Free Press is not going to bend over backwards to normalize what Trump has done any more than we would bend over backwards to give equal time to someone to deny climate change. We live in a world where there is an endless supply of misinformation and a shortage of testing sites for COVID-19. We are facing a threat that grows exponentially and threatens us all, regardless of how we vote. If putting facts on the table during a pandemic, trying to hold those in power accountable and alerting the public to threats to their health means I am biased, then I’ll gladly wear that for as long as the Free Press has to cover this virus. So yes, I will keep calm and carry on. And thanks for the shirt. While I won’t wear it, I’ll certainly never forget your gift.

Oct. 9: A very different Thanksgiving

I’m not sure what I thought Thanksgiving might look like when the pandemic first hit us, but here it is. In those early days of COVID-19, everything was a blur, and this long weekend was a long way from anyone’s radar screen. A growing sense of uncertainty was taking hold in our newsroom even as Wendy Sawatzky, my associate editor of digital news, was certain we needed to respond with a newsletter that was all-COVID-all-the-time. I’d like to say we drew up this nightly update on a napkin, but that would give way too much credit to what was essentially an improv act. The only thing that Wendy asked of me was to come up with something, anything, to introduce each briefing. But night after night, something special began to build with this newsletter. Despite lives being lived socially distanced, we found a way for our newsroom to become closer to our readers. Time and time again, you’ve sent me notes of thanks, words of encouragement and heartfelt accounts of your fears and your frustrations. You’ve found ways to help me round out this nightly note as well as provide story ideas that we turned into headlines. In the process, subscribers to this nightly newsletter now outnumber those we deliver the paper to each morning. All of that is something I am truly thankful for now that our ride along the coranavi- rus curve has taken us to the start of a long weekend imbued with warm memories of family and friends, roast turkey and all the trimmings. We know this Thanksgiving will be different than our last one — and not just because we’re being hammered with something that simply won’t melt away like the massive dump of snow that triggered last year’s state of emergency. In our home, this Thanksgiving gathering will be smaller and more than a little subdued because of the distance we are unable to bridge with family living in COVID hotspots in England and North Dakota. But we still have much to be grateful for and will find a way to imbue this long weekend with something special to remember. I pray you and your family will be able to do the same. Be safe. Be healthy. Happy Thanksgiving! Oct. 13: Vouchers instead of hampers

I had only just finished some Thanksgiving leftovers for lunch when I learned one of our reporters was on the trail of a pretty big change at the Christmas Cheer Board. With Thanksgiving not yet digested and Halloween and Remembrance Day still to come, I was suddenly leapfrogging ahead in my mind to what a COVID Christmas was going to be like. Or to be more accurate, how unlike Christmas the upcoming holidays are going to be for far too many Winnipeg families. Of course, the news from the century-old Winnipeg institution that it’s shifting to a hamperless Christmas made sense. How can you possibly pack and then deliver hampers without putting at risk your volunteers, your donors and the families in need? In the age of this damn virus, you can’t. So instead of deliveries of toys, mittens and turkeys all packed with cheer, there will be only food vouchers. Food vouchers. Merry Christmas. For some reason, it doesn’t quite have the same ring to it. Among the rising case counts and death toll of this pandemic, an end to hampers for the first time in the Cheer Board’s history might not seem like much. Except for the fact that traditions matter. Especially traditions that made our community stronger. Especially traditions that could be counted on to deliver some cheer when we really need it. In this pandemic, public health officials won’t be tracking the loss of 17,000 hampers that would have been delivered in this city. The thousands of toys and knitted tuques and mitts also won’t make the casualty count. Likewise, the 300 warehouse volunteers and the 2,500 drivers who got the hampers to the door by Christmas day. But as a city, we need to track those losses. We need to understand what’s on the line now for the Cheer Board. And we need to remember what needs to be restored when, hopefully, it is safe to do so next Christmas.

Oct. 14: Flipping the bird to a virus

At this point in the pandemic, who among us hasn’t at least thought of giving the middle finger to COVID-19? Well, rising case counts in Berlin led to the German capital mounting a campaign to do just that. Alas, being that provocative got the ad pulled today even in a city known for its notoriously dry humour. Let’s begin with the ad in question. An elderly woman — representing the age group most at risk to the virus — faces the camera with no-nonsense eyes that rise above her floral mask. Her left hand defiantly flips the bird in a way that adds an explicit exclamation point to the campaign’s message: “A finger wag to all those without a mask. We stick to corona rules.” As you might expect, the cheeky campaign got noticed. Some of it was positive. But the negatives, especially concerns the message was divisive, carried the day. And so the pensioner and her middle finger are gone. Since I’m in the news business, I’m not going to pretend to have any expertise in running an advertising campaign. In other words, I can’t say whether the Berlin ad deserved a thumbs up or, a well, you know. But because I’m in the news business, I carefully watch not only the province’s messaging on COVID-19 but also Manitoba’s case count. And here’s the thing: the public health messages really haven’t changed much even though the troubling trend line strongly suggests they ain’t working. Since the advent of the Age of COVID, Manitobans have heard the same old, same old. Wash your hands. Social distance. Stay home if you are sick. There’s been nothing particularly creative or even remotely provocative. And as I’ve mentioned here previously, the province has yet to move into a social media space that might actually connect with the younger age groups, which apparently still aren’t getting the message about COVID-19. I’m not saying we need to steal a page from Berlin and start employing the middle finger. But if public health messaging is falling flat while the curve isn’t, can we at least ask WTF?

October 15: Losing our way

A few years ago on a flight from London Gatwick to Rome with my daughter, I ended up sitting next to a former RAF pilot. As we crossed the English Channel, we started talking. He knew all about Winnipeg because he had spent some time at 1 Canadian Air Division Headquarters. But his connection to my hometown was only a small part of our conversation, because his post-military life revolved around risk management and I had a whole lot of questions about his job. While I’m not sure any nervous flyers in adjacent rows appreciated the discussion, we talked at length about the various risks facing the aviation industry and what steps could be taken to minimize those dangers. For instance, he pointed out that our flight route faced more risks than one in North American airspace because of the higher volume of traffic over Europe. While the theoretical risk of colliding with another plane was higher, he noted that being aware of that threat and responding with the appropriate measures in the cockpit should ensure we landed safe and sound. Which, of course, is exactly what happened. At various points in the pandemic, I’ve thought about the in-flight lessons from that former British officer, especially his view that properly managing risk can enable you to do more than you might otherwise have thought was possible or even safe. We live in a world of risks, whether we are boarding a plane, running out for groceries in the midst of code orange restrictions or sending kids off to school with a mask and a prayer. For the most part, airlines have found ways to make flying safer than ever before as the number of accident fatalities worldwide fell to 283 in 2019 from 2,500 in 1972. But on the ground here in Manitoba, we are clearly not doing nearly as well managing the risks of COVID-19. In the words of Dr. Brent Roussin as he today announced a record-breaking 173 new COVID-19 cases: “We’ve lost our way.” Those aren’t the words you ever want to hear from your pilot or your chief public health officer. When pilots find themselves flying blind, they can rely on their instruments. The only instruments at Roussin’s disposal involve recommending even more restrictions to manage the growing viral risk. And make no mistake, more restrictions are headed our way. Among the frustrations is the fact we should have seen this coming. How could we have been flying blind given what is going on all around us? Alas, that’s not just a question for those piloting the province, it’s also a question for all of us aboard this pandemic flight who also have a responsibility to help manage the risks of COVID-19.

Oct. 16: COVID and the classroom

Over the years, I’ve been to many a parent-teacher conference involving our three children. But this morning was a first for me as the chance to get into the classroom to meet with the teacher and to look at some of coursework is now so, well, yesteryear. Instead, the best we could do were pre-arranged phone calls in 10-minute blocks with those who have returned to the front of the classrooms at my daughter’s high school. While it wasn’t the same, it was enough to get a sense of how her Grade 12 year is going and for me to express our appreciation for what her teachers are doing in these extraordinary times. If you want to get a better sense of how extraordinary the teaching challenge is amid the pandemic, please take a few minutes to read what Maggie Macintosh found when she went looking for first-hand accounts from those on the front lines of our education system. “I have over 20 years teaching and I feel like I’m a first-year teacher just barely making it through the day, and everybody feels like that. Everybody’s stressed,” one teacher told Maggie before tearing up during an interview. “I don’t know how we’re going to make it to Christmas, really.” Maggie’s reporting is based on interviews with seven teachers, all of whom had to remain anonymous for fear of retribution for speaking out about the realities of classrooms amid COVID-19. It’s a shame we couldn’t put their names on the record, because their service and their sacrifice deserve to be recognized by far more than just the parents of their students.

Oct. 19: A clear, troubling trend

Once upon a time, we could look to the east and to the west of us and feel pretty damn good about how we were responding to COVID-19. If we wanted to feel even better, we could look south of us and shake our head at how things could have got so bad so quickly down there. But that was then. This is now. And yet, we somehow still seem stuck in the much-more-comfortable past as if nothing has changed. So let’s look east and west again. According to Health Canada’s tracking, Manitoba’s rate of active cases per 100,000 was 122 as of Sunday night. Not only is that the highest rate in the land, but it’s a number that suggests Saskatchewan (29) and Ontario (44) should really consider shutting down their borders to anyone from our province. Now let’s head south, while keeping in mind Manitoba’s current five-day test positivity rate of 4.2 per cent. We will start in New York, which was once one of the deadliest places for the virus. Today, that state’s active case rate per 100,000 over the last seven days is 51. And its test positivity rate is 1.2 per cent. Let’s then go west to California, which also had big problems earlier. The Golden State’s response to the pandemic is still pretty golden as its per capita active case rate is 54 while its test positivity rate is 2.5 per cent. Finally, let’s head south to Arizona, where this summer the hospitals were close to running out of ICU beds. Today, the active case rate per 100,000 there is 77 while the state’s positivity rate remains much higher than Manitoba’s at 8.6 per cent. Of course, there are many other states, such as nearby North Dakota, that are much hotter hot spots than Manitoba. And yes, the tracking from Health Canada, Johns Hopkins and the New York Times might not sync up to Manitoba’s data dashboard — especially given the province’s claim that its active case count is currently inflated. But the trend line is as clear as it is exponentially troubling. Once upon a time, Manitoba had the benefit of time to watch and to learn from the pandemic lessons learned the hard way elsewhere. Today, we might be in danger of running out of time.

Oct. 20: A time to mourn

The late-night note that landed in my inbox was the kind that immediately pulls on the heartstrings. “I missed my mother’s funeral today (Monday) and I did not need to!” was the opening line in Anne McGarry’s email. As I read on, it soon became clear why she was writing to me. Her mother died last week and funeral arrangements were made at a time when up to 10 people could attend under provincial pandemic restrictions. But on Friday, the province announced those restrictions were going to be tightened, limiting funeral attendance to just five. The new order was to come into force on Monday — the day the family had scheduled their mother’s funeral. “I called the Thomson Funeral Home on Saturday, Oct. 17, and the director said that he had to go by instructions from above (no pun intended) and they were accepting that the limit on attendance was five,” she explained. “The priest was of the same opinion. What do we do? Hire a lawyer to come out to the church on Monday to fight with the funeral home director and the priest, both of whom would have to call their superiors and lawyers? Perhaps it would have been resolved quickly or perhaps not — who knows, because we did not choose that path.” And so the funeral went ahead as scheduled on Monday at 11 a.m. In order to comply with the new restrictions, only four of the six adult children could attend. Anne was not one of them. The fifth spot went to the videographer so the ceremony could be livestreamed. As painful as that experience was, their despair deepened when they discovered later in the day that the provincial order initially scheduled to come into force on the first minute of Oct. 19 was delayed until 11 p.m. In other words, Anne could have legally attended her mother’s funeral with all her siblings. “Of course, ours is a small problem albeit extremely personal and important to us. Thousands of lives are disrupted and affected by these orders. They need to be right. Oh, and then the government changes its mind and allows beverage rooms to stay open?” I don’t know what to say to the McGarrys and others whose lives have been disrupted in similar ways by these new public health orders. The coronavirus is bad enough without confusion making it even worse. Fighting a pandemic is dependent on public health and public trust. You can’t have one without the other. Anything that undermines one, erodes the other. When the province issues new orders, it trusts the public to do the right thing. The McGarrys did what the province asked of them, despite the personal sacrifice that required. But the McGarrys also trusted the province to be straight with them about when these new public health restrictions began. They’ll never get another chance to lay their mother to rest. The province will never get another chance to repay them for that trust. In a public health crisis, that’s something we should all mourn.

Oct. 21: Learning from others’ mistakes

Tonight’s briefing will raise some questions about COVID-19 lessons from afar that Manitoba might want to start learning now, before it’s too late. So let’s look east to Toronto, a city that has a test positivity rate of 3.1 per cent – two points lower than Winnipeg’s infection rate. Earlier this month, Toronto Public Health limited contact tracing efforts as its viral case count soared. Unable to manage the growing load on the key pandemic response, Toronto made the decision to prioritize case and contact management to the highest-risk scenarios such as outbreaks in schools and nursing homes. A week later, the Ontario government tried to play catch-up by announcing a plan to hire hundreds more contact tracers. But those reinforcements are unlikely to arrive until sometime in November. Now let’s look south to North Dakota, which announced Tuesday it was asking residents infected for COVID-19 to fill in as contact tracers by spreading the word to any friends and family who might need to get tested. As was the case in Toronto earlier, a viral surge had overloaded the state›s contact tracing capacity. By now, everyone should recognize how important contact tracing is in the fight against the pandemic. But does everyone recognize how much harder disease detec- tive work is when case counts spike at a time when more of us are out and about? As Dr. Jennifer Nuzzo, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Centre for Health Secu- rity, told the New York Times, investigators had only about six contacts per infected individual to trace in the spring when schools were closed and much of the economy was shut down. But today, with lockdowns a thing of the past and schools in session, Nuzzo said each case might require 20 or more calls. Do the math and you can see how quickly triple-digit new case counts in Manitoba could overwhelm our tracing system. Officially, we don’t have a problem yet with contact tracing, even though Manitoba is now one of the nation’s COVID hotspots. But our newspaper has already reported that some positive cases are waiting more than six days for a call from one of the province’s tracers. We also know if they don’t get a call, that infected individual can’t get the code needed to change their status on the COVID Alert app. My hunch is that what happened earlier in Toronto and yesterday in North Dakota is going to happen here — if it hasn’t already occurred. The only questions to be asked is when the province is going to share that reality with the public and whether it has a plan in place beyond the tracing recruits from the Red Cross expected in the coming weeks.

Oct. 22: Schools on borrowed time

Just as schools were getting ready to reopen in September, I used this nightly briefing to write about the critical tradeoffs that need to be made in a pandemic. The question I asked that evening riffed off of one posed by Dr. Aaron Carroll of the Indiana University School of Medicine: since we can’t have it all in a pandemic, if certain activities we deem necessary come with risks, are we prepared to restrict other activities to compensate? Tonight I’m returning to that question as it has become painfully clear we haven’t done a very good job in recent months at managing those critical tradeoffs. Manitoba’s COVID-19 death toll keeps rising. Triple-digit new case counts are now the norm. As of Monday, schools in the Winnipeg area and northern Manitoba will move to the orange restricted zone. With Winnipeg’s test positivity rate now up to 6.5 per cent, you have to wonder how much longer schools will be able to keep their doors open. If the experience this week in Boston, where schools suspended class instruction when that city’s positivity rate hit 5.7 per cent, is any indication, then our schools are on borrowed time. Let’s have that sink in for a minute: unless Manitoba’s troubling trend lines suddenly swing in the other direction, kids will be back to home learning after barely two months in school. How the hell could we let that happen? While Dr. Carroll practises in Indiana, his diagnosis of human nature in the midst of a pandemic goes a long way to explaining the mess we now have in Manitoba. “We aren’t very good at discussing trade-offs. We want it all. We want to eat in restaurants, crowd into houses, go to work and celebrate occasions en masse,” he noted in a column for the New York Times published as he prepared for his kids to return to school in September. “We could choose to engage in just some of those things. We could decide to get a massage or get our nails done or have a haircut instead of demanding that all of these and more be available to us simultaneously. “From a policy perspective, we’ve been just as unwilling to sacrifice. Almost everyone thinks that opening schools is extremely important (myself included), but too few people have been willing to discuss what we might be willing to shut down to make that happen. If we want to make it safer to send kids back to school, we might need to consider reducing the number of people who can drink in bars or eat in restaurants, for example.” Alas, the doctor’s good advice wasn’t heard here in Manitoba, a province that believes it can keep both schools and strip clubs open at the same time. That’s a choice destined to make for some mighty painful lessons to be learned.

Oct. 23: COVID-19 not the only crisis

While these daily briefings are all about the coronavirus, please allow me to walk and chew gum at the same time in tonight’s edition. Since late March, the Free Press has pretty much become all-COVID-all-the-time for good reason. But this global crisis consuming our lives hasn’t changed the fact we were already facing a threat that will remain long after a vaccine flattens the curve for good. Climate change is real. Climate change will not just disappear. And if we don’t start applying the lessons of COVID — science can’t be ignored, expert advice saves lives while drinking Lysol won’t, denial is dangerous — then we are going to have even bigger problems on our hands with a planet that is getting ever warmer. At this point, let’s bring Bill Gates into the conversation with this observation he made in August: “If you want to understand the kind of damage that climate change will inflict, look at COVID-19 and spread the pain out over a much longer period of time. The loss of life and economic misery caused by this pandemic are on par with what will happen regularly if we do not eliminate the world’s carbon emissions.” To help build that understanding, we sent Sarah Lawrynuik north to Churchill to take a deep dive into the impact climate change is having on Manitoba’s northern port and the region. Sarah has covered climate change’s impacts and policy for several years and is ideally suited to make the science of global warming understandable and relatable to our readership. Her position is funded through the Local Journalism Initiative. The first chapter of her extensive report debuts this weekend. COVID-19 is a threat to public health. So too is climate change. That means we are all going to have to learn to walk and chew gum at the same time. My hope is that Sarah’s report and the journalism we are delivering on that other crisis drives home that imperative.

Oct. 26: Public needs to be heard I wasn’t sure whether to be flattered or alarmed at what landed in my inbox Sunday afternoon. The email was begging for action on the troubling trend in Manitoba that keeps pushing COVID-19 cases ever higher. “I am pleading with you to take the necessary steps to stop this unbelievable surge,” he wrote. “Please give me some hope.” But his desperate plea wasn’t just to me, as Premier Brian Pallister and Dr. Brent Roussin were also included on the note. At one level, I appreciate the fact he had grouped my office along with that of the head of government and the chief public health officer in his bid to prevent Winnipeg from becoming the “epicentre for Canada” when it comes to the coronavirus. But at another level, I was concerned that his frustration with the pandemic was such that I was someone he needed to turn to for hope. Since Pallister is unlikely to loop me in on COVID cabinet discussions and my one university biology credit won’t get me too far with Roussin’s office, the best I can do is use my office to ask some questions. For instance, why is it that Pallister and Roussin were so quick to turn to Manitobans for advice in the early days of the pandemic? We had town halls on the various phases of the province’s reopening strategy in May, June and July, but since inviting Manitobans to dial in to a town hall on the plan to reopen schools on Aug. 18, the phone lines have been closed to the public. So what’s happened over the past two months to that feedback loop that allowed input from thousands of Manitobans? I don’t want to get too cynical here, but it’s certainly much easier to hear from those you govern when the COVID curve is on its way to being flattened. One can only imagine the earful that would be coming the province’s way now that the body count keeps climbing higher, positivity rates are among the worst in the land and there is little in the way of hope after nearly a month of code orange restrictions. Alas, for some reason, we haven’t had any town halls at a time when they might be needed the most. As I have said before in these nightly updates, the province has been asking a lot of Manitobans over the course of the pandemic. Given that fact, it shouldn’t be too much to invite the public to ask questions of those guiding the province’s pandemic response. I know of one member of the public who would love to get either Pallister or Roussin on the phone. And the sooner, the better.

Oct. 27: By the numbers In terms of pandemic problems, I wasn’t sure whether it was medical or mathematical in nature. But the diagnosis from a doctor at one of the world’s leading COVID-19 tracking centres seemed to add up, so that’s what I am sharing with you tonight. At the risk of oversimplifying things, Dr. Joshua Sharfstein of Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health says more cases mean more deaths. Sure, many of those pushing the case count higher and higher are young and will be back on their feet in a week or so. And yes, the health-care system is now much better at treating those who land in hospital than in the early days of the pandemic. But there is still no escaping the hard reality that the more the virus infects, the more it kills. “That means overall that because there are so many more cases that more and more people are going to die,” Sharfstein said Monday on Bloomberg TV. We are now seeing that play out here in Manitoba. Another new daily record for new case counts Tuesday was accompanied by more deaths. Since Oct. 21, Manitoba has announced 15 deaths and 1,043 new cases. None of this bodes well for what’s going to be happening in our hospitals and our morgues. South of the border, the viral math led Sharfstein to project that 2,000 deaths per day in the United States isn’t unrealistic based on the growing case counts and hospitalizations. According to the COVID Tracking Project, there were 931 more deaths in the United States on Oct. 27. “Anyone who thinks this increase is because of testing is completely wrong because we are seeing surges in hospitals. And when there’s surges in hospital care, you are going to have surges in patients who need to be mechanically ventilated. And when that happens, there is going to be an increase in deaths.” Unlike other jurisdictions, Manitoba has refused to provide any projections of the lives that might be lost to COVID-19. And that’s part of a growing problem of transparency making it hard for the public to figure out the medical and mathematical equations that are increasingly about life and death.

Oct. 28: A welcome light in the darkness

On a snowy, slippery and slushy day like today, you can sometimes wonder if there is light at the end of the COVID tunnel. There certainly appeared to be nothing but more darkness coming from the Manitoba Legislative Building as Dr. Brent Roussin delivered yet another briefing detailing more COVID-19 deaths, more positive cases and more dire warnings. But at the other end of Memorial Boulevard, there was something bright being lit. Or to be more accurate in the words of the Inuktitut, there is now Qaumajuq.

RUTH BONNEVILLE / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS A sculpture by Inuit artist Goota Ashoona is a celebration of the light of Qaumajuq.

The new name given to the Inuit Art Centre nestled up against the Winnipeg Art Gal- lery when translated from one of the main Inuit languages means “It is bright, it is lit.” If you want to say it, here’s a phonetic guide: KOW-ma-yourk or HOW-ma-yourk. I wanted to shine a light (yes, that pun was intentional) on this project now nearing completion because we all need something to brighten our lives as the days grow shorter and the news becomes grimmer. While today’s announcement to unveil the new name was virtual in nature, we can already see what is taking shape inside as everything about the initiative involves light. The massive glass skin not only illuminates the display space, but also invites the eye from street level to see what was previously hidden away in basement vaults. There is much, much more at play in what the Winnipeg Art Gallery is unveiling amid the darkness of the pandemic, as you can read in the pieces from both Melissa Martin and Alan Small. But for a city unable to stem a rising positivity rate, for a community likely to be hit with even more restrictions, we shouldn’t lose sight of what’s still getting done, what’s moving forward and what we can look forward to visiting when it is again safe to do so. Something has been lit in our city that won’t be extinguished by a pandemic. I can’t think of a better time to learn to say Qaumajuq. Oct. 29: The inside scoop

On a day when Manitoba came close to hitting 200 new COVID-19 cases, we need to take a breath and talk about what happens to all the breaths taken in indoor spaces during a pandemic. To be more specific, let’s focus on some simulations of the viral risks associated with three everyday scenarios put together by El Pais, a Spanish newspaper. In graphics that are as easy to understand as they are to scroll through, the Ma- drid-based newspaper outlines the likelihood of infection based on the safety measures taken as well as the length of exposure we have all faced when gathering with family in a living room, meeting friends for drinks at a bar or sitting in a classroom. I’m going to focus on the scenario involving a classroom as the province today announced that College Louis Riel is being shut down after an outbreak was declared at the St. Boniface-area high school. In the El Pais simulation where an infected teacher is in a classroom with 24 students, after two hours as many as 12 pupils could be infected. However, if everyone is wearing a face mask, the number infected drops to five. And if the class is stopped after an hour to completely refresh the air, only one student gets infected. The interactive does a great job of explaining the science behind the spreading of the coronavirus via the viral-laden droplets that come from our nose and mouth. For instance, I learned that we emit 50 times the number of infectious particles by shouting than when we are silent. If we want to keep our case counts in Manitoba below 200, I’d suggest you spend some time with this interactive to understand the risks indoor spaces pose and then do your part to help slow COVID’s spread by spreading this intro to friends, family and co-workers. In the meantime, try to resist the urge to scream even though there are plenty of reasons to do so these days. Apparently, silence is not only golden, but also safer in a pandemic.

Oct. 30: Doctors speak out

For much of the pandemic, our newsroom has tried over and over again to tell stories from those on the front lines of the health-care system. We want to know what they are facing. We want to hear their fears. We want to get at the real story of what COVID-19 is doing to our emergency rooms, our wards and our ICUs. But other than a few words from a few nurses and doctors who were prepared to speak if granted anonymity, the health-care story of this pandemic has largely been told by those from on high: the chief public health officer, the chief nursing officer and the health minister. That’s what happens when gag orders spread through the system faster than the coronavirus. I’m also wondering if what’s going on now in Manitoba — the unrelenting rise in COVID cases, deaths and positivity rate — is because our health-care system was infected by a gag order that silenced those prepared to treat whoever came through hospital doors even if there wasn’t sufficient PPE to protect them from the virus spreading near and far. Fortunately, a group of doctors could no longer bite their collective tongue and turned to the Free Press to issue a stern warning, based not only on years of medical experience, but also on the realities of what they are seeing from the inside. “We know right now, no matter what we do, we have 60 deaths now and we will double it to 120…. We’re in deep trouble based on the numbers we’re seeing,” Dr. Anand Kumar said in an interview. “We went from 50 or so people (testing positive for COVID-19) two weeks ago to almost 200 today. Based on pretty standard populations — and no change in our approach — two weeks from now there will be 400 to 500 cases per day and 1,000 two weeks after that.” Until we published Kumar’s warning, along with those of other doctors who penned an open letter to Premier Brian Pallister and Health Minister Cameron Friesen, that kind of detail has never been shared with the public in the midst of the biggest public health threat to the province in more than a century. I don’t want to read too much into the fact that hours after our front-page story Friday the province announced more restrictions in a desperate bid to change the trajectory of an increasingly deadly disease. But I sure wish our readers had been able to hear much earlier from the likes of Kumar and others now having to treat the fallout of a pandemic response that’s failing even if no one in government is willing to admit it. Monday, Nov. 2: Duff’s Ditch, Brian’s bromides

Manitobans know how to fight a flood, in large part because we’ve had plenty of experience with the threats posed by rising rivers. We’re good at rolling up our sleeves and hefting sandbags. We’re quick to rush in to support neighbours in need. We take pride and comfort in the investment made long ago to build a floodway that has spared Winnipeg from the Red’s full wrath over and over again. But an invisible pandemic that ebbs and flows? Well, clearly we have a lot to learn. Or do we? While this provincial state of emergency is unlike any we have seen in more than a century, there should have been some muscle memory to draw upon to help combat COVID-19. In theory, we knew the value of forecasts and models. In theory, we understood the danger of letting down our guard. In theory, we had the lessons of past premiers such as Duff Roblin to guide us. In theory, we recognized how important it was to turn on a dime even if the cost would be measured in millions of dollars. Think of the speed in which the Z-dike was built during the 1997 Flood of the Century. And yet, here we are today in code red with talk of a possible curfew coming weeks after Manitoba became the country’s viral hotspot. And yet, here we are today with the province finally announcing it has reactivated its unified incident command structure after an unrelenting death toll. And yet, here we are today with Premier Brian Pallister now talking about the need to be proactive and the value of preventive measures after witnessing exponential growth in our active caseload. As always, Pallister is fond of drawing on chestnuts doled out by his parents whenever he is near a microphone. Today’s words of wisdom echoed his mother’s advice that it’s “better to put a fence around the top of the hill than an ambulance at the bottom.” Good point. Pallister’s mother probably also had some advice about when to close barn doors. I’m guessing Duff Roblin wished the premier had remembered that one, too.

Nov. 3: A return to rational politics

The stock market is not the economy. But the stock market clearly likes what it expects the verdict from U.S. voters will be tonight — or some point much later. In anticipation of a likely Biden victory and the possibility of a big stimulus package from a Democrat in the White House, financial markets rallied to their best day in months. Turns out Wall Street might be turning its back on Trump’s presidential stock. The stock market is also not some pandemic prognosticator. But maybe, just maybe, there is reason for at least some optimism about the course of the pandemic in the rise of U.S. stocks and treasury yields. In an election that has been dominated by COVID-19, in a presidential race in which the virus infected the incumbent, his family and inner circle, in a campaign that ends with nearly 100,000 Americans being added each day to its case count, could this be a signal that things at least might not get too much worse? I know the virus doesn’t pay attention to politics. It cares little about blue states or red states. It does what it does because it can. And it won’t stop until there’s a vaccine. But in the meantime, as I prepare to wait up well past midnight watching the U.S. election results while we hold the presses to the last possible minute, I am also holding onto hope that the possible return to more rational politics and science-based policies will at least mean our southern neighbour has a fighting chance against this pandemic.

Nov. 4: Thinking positive

I was never someone who relied on horoscopes to tell me what kind of day I was going to have. There was a brief period when I would glance at the Biodex that used to run in the Free Press, but that was around the same time my Grade 5 mind put stock in mood rings. These days, however, I worry that too much of my life revolves around the rhythms of the regular COVID-19 update from the province. I get that my job requires me to pay attention to the rising case load, the body counts, ICU capacity and a test-positivity rate that’s adding to our collective negative outlook, but even in code red, there’s got to be more to life than tracking lives lost. Of course, I could shift my focus to take my cues from the steady drip of U.S. presidential vote updates while bracing for the inevitable court challenges, but doing so would probably be as healthy as finding out what the stars had in store for this Pisces. Instead, I’m hitting the pause button to provide my own update after some personal stock-taking: • My family are all healthy and safe and weathering the viral storm as best as possible. • The warm weather the past few days has been a blessing in more ways than I could have imagined. I went for a long run in just my shorts and T-shirt and suddenly felt like it was August again. Some overdue TLC for my lawn made my leafblower-neighbour jealous. I fired up the BBQ on the deck for the past two nights and I’m looking to make it a propane-dining hat trick by the time this newsletter lands in your inbox. • In the past two days, dear friends have shared pictures they took of sunrises that added to the sense of warmth. • I’m still able to go to work every day at a job I love. • I’m lucky to serve readers who tell us every day to keep up the good work. • I’m finding ways to cope with the fact I have no hockey to play, no hockey-playing kids to cheer for and no hockey to watch on TV. So there you have it. My very own positivity rate in the midst of this endless pandemic. My hope is that you also have something more than horoscopes or mood rings to get you through each and every day. Stay safe. Stay strong.

Nov. 5: Roaring at the twenties

Full disclosure: I am a father of three kids who are all potential coronavirus super- spreaders given their age. Our oldest is 23 and working at a university. Our middle son is 20 and still doing his best to outrun COVID-19 while running track at North Dakota State University — in a state that has the worst viral metrics in the United States. And our daughter, 17, is in Grade 12 at a high school that was hit with another round of cases this week. For months now, my wife and I have been urging them to be smart and to stay safe. We remind them to wear masks and wash hands. We appreciate how they shrank their social circles in the spring and we’re now lecturing them about the need to again tighten our bubble. In between, we have kept our fingers crossed and prayed a lot. In his new role as the province’s “stern dad,” Brian Pallister this week has set his sights on those in my kids’ demographic group to help explain why the province is in a bit of a pandemic predicament. “I was in my twenties once and I understand,” the premier said Monday. “We are social people, we want to be out there, we want to be mixing and mingling with our friends and meeting new people. I get that. Totally. “ Today, Pallister debuted a new ad campaign that targets young people as the ones who need to get with the public health program to save lives. Alas, the follies of youth only go so far in explaining why Manitoba remains the reigning COVID hotspot in Canada. Moreover, we should have long ago learned the dangers of trying to oversimplify the coronavirus. Yes, those in their twenties are responsible for the largest number of new cases in Manitoba in October as the record shows 685 of those aged 20-29 tested positive. But the thirtysomethings weren’t far behind as 628 of those aged 30-39 were infected in October. If you add up the case counts of those aged 50-79, that double cohort was responsible for 798 new cases. In other words, there is no shortage of opportunity for learning at all ages.

Dig a little deeper, as our data journalist Michael Pereira did with these charts, you will find that on a per capita basis, those in their twenties weren’t the leading cohort for new cases. That dubious distinction goes to those in their eighty and nineties.

Over the course of the pandemic, the premier and Dr. Brent Roussin have repeatedly warned against stigmatizing those who get the disease. Over the course of the pandemic, the premier and Dr. Roussin have repeatedly said we all have a role to play in helping to flatten the curve. And yet, here we are today with those in their twenties — the ones most likely working in service-industry jobs that increase the risks of exposure — being singled out as the ones who need to change their behaviour. It might be convenient, even politically smart, to point the finger at those in their twenties, but doing so ignores not only the data within our growing case count, but the reality that stupid and selfish acts know no age limit.

Nov. 6: Hardship and heartbreak

Since the very first case of COVID-19 arrived in our province, Larry Kusch has been a big part of our coronavirus coverage. As a senior member of the Legislative Press Gallery, Larry remained on duty at his desk to track the politics of the pandemic, to staff the endless viral briefings and to ask the tough questions of those leading the public health response. That commitment meant that Larry’s byline was on front-page story after front-page story after front- page story for nearly seven months. But in the last few weeks, Larry’s byline has been missing as this all-consuming story of our lives was in the process of taking the life of his wife Sigrid Dahle, a longtime Winnipeg visual arts writer and curator, and a past director of the Art Gallery of Southwestern Manitoba in Brandon. In recent years, she was the University of Mani- toba’s art collections co-ordinator. I had no idea what Larry was dealing with until I got an email from him on the Thanksgiving weekend. Sigrid had been admitted to St. Boniface Hospital after her late-stage cancer triggered a trip to emergency. Shortly after, there was another email letting me know that she had tested positive for COVID-19 as an outbreak spread through the hospital. There were other notes back and forth that talked about how difficult it was to say goodbye to someone you love when you can’t even be at their bedside because they are in a COVID ward. And then there was the note I was bracing for, the one letting me know that Sigrid was yet another Manitoban to die from COVID. Longtime readers of the Free Press will recall Sigrid’s byline from our pages as she used to serve as our visual arts critic. So while our newsroom shares the pain of Lar- ry’s loss, we also mourn for a former contributor. There will be a brief obit in Saturday’s edition and a longer one at some point later. Larry is taking another week off, but you will soon see his byline again on our front pages as his commitment to cover this pandemic has never wavered in spite of what he and his family have faced. On behalf of the Free Press, I want to extend our condolences to Larry and his daughter Emma for their loss. Nov. 9: Keep an eye on the rearview mirror

I spent a lot of time this weekend focusing on what our minivan’s mirrors said was behind us. That’s what happens when you’re helping your teenage daughter practise parallel parking. We paid attention to how close the side mirrors said we were to the hockey sticks standing upright in recycling bins designating a makeshift stall. We watched our angles in the rearview mirror. We worried about whether we were about to go over the curb. And then we did it all over again because we know that on your driver’s test, if you don’t get it right, you never get out of the parking lot. Of course, managing a pandemic is a whole lot tougher than parallel parking, but there is one clear parallel: the importance of keeping at least one eye on the rearview mirror. Time and time again since we began living in the Age of COVID-19, we’ve had the chance to be better prepared for what was ahead of us by learning from what was behind us. And time and time again, we’ve failed to check our mirrors. Take for instance, a class action suit filed against Revera for what the families of residents who died from COVID-19 in its Ontario-managed homes allege was negligence. That’s been something in the rearview mirror since April. And yet, the province was still caught off-guard by the mounting death tolls we›ve seen at Revera-operated homes such as Maples and Parkview Place. There are the letters from doctors that have been on Health Minister Cameron Friesen’s desk since long before the pandemic began, pointing out the inherent risks now coming home to roost for a health-care system trying to restructure while responding to a deadly virus. Finally, there’s the unforgiving coronavirus calculus that takes what’s bad today and makes it far worse after the next incubation period. No one should be surprised that Manitoba has seen 2,200 new cases in the past week as the growing numbers 14 days earlier were the surest sign of what we were going to be hit with now. Today, Dr. Brent Roussin ushered this warning: “We’re at a critical point.” Actually, the numbers suggest we sped past that that critical off-ramp long ago. When you look in the rearview mirror, you’ll also find a story we published on Hal- loween warning that researchers at the University of Washington forecast as many as 2,600 COVID-19 related deaths in Manitoba by Feb. 1. Since that story ran, Manitoba has recorded 42 more deaths to push the province›s COVID-19 body count to 109 — and there›s little to suggest that troubling trend line will do anything other than move ever higher in the short term. I’d like to think those with their hands on the pandemic steering wheel are reflecting upon the University of Washington’s dire prognostication. Unlike my daughter’s driving test, there won’t be another chance to turn things around. Nov. 10: No simple, quick solution

I really wish there were a silver bullet. I really wish that all of Manitoba weren’t about to endure up to a hard month of greater isolation for the greater good. I really wish our foe were a werewolf, not a deadly virus. And if wishes were horses, well, you get the point about where we are in this pandemic. Fortunately, Manitoba Premier Brian Pallister gets it. So too, does U.S. president-elect Joseph Biden. It would have been easy for both to put more stock in Pfizer’s coronavirus vaccine announcement than the tools in hand to deal with the task we all face. But easy is not part of the viral vocabulary. “It takes time,’’ Pallister said today when asked about news a vaccine could be ready for distribution early in 2021. “Don’t let your guard down because you think there is a vaccine right around the corner.” Similarly, Biden stayed away from hype in his statement a day earlier “This is why the head of the CDC warned this fall that for the foreseeable future, a mask remains a more potent weapon against the virus than the vaccine,’’ Biden said in a statement. “Today’s news does not change this urgent reality. Americans will have to rely on masking, distancing, contact tracing, hand washing and other measures to keep themselves safe well into next year… America is still losing over 1,000 people a day from COVID-19, and that number is rising — and will continue to get worse unless we make progress on masking and other immediate actions. That is the reality for now, and for the next few months.” Reality has often been something we’ve all too frequently ignored during the pandemic, and we’ve seen where that has got us. To wit, this all-caps tweet from the current resident of the White House: “STOCK MARKET UP BIG, VACCINE COMING SOON. REPORT 90% EFFECTIVE. SUCH GREAT NEWS!” At the risk of giving any more oxygen to Donald Trump’s constant framing of the pandemic in terms of what it means to Wall Street, I’m going to talk in investment terms. If we are disciplined, if we are prudent, if we are patient, we can all reap the returns a vaccine promises. All we need to do is get ourselves — and our health-care system — through the urgent reality of the next few months. Markets hate uncertainty. So do those stuck in lockdowns. But a vaccine is a certainty that moves us well past relying on wishes. That’s the pay- off. That’s the silver bullet. That’s the reason to be bullish even if what’s now being asked of us seems too much to bear.

Nov. 12: Confusion and clarity

There’s no doubt that Dr. Brent Roussin knows all about the Hippocratic Oath, its pledge to “first, do no harm” and the other undertakings medical students swear to when donning their white coats for the first time. But I’m not so sure lessons about not shooting the messenger were part of his training as a medical doctor, or for that matter, his law degree. As Manitoba moved into this latest stage of code red, Manitoba’s chief public health officer repeatedly took aim at the media for the confusion that erupted about the latest restrictions on social gatherings. In short order, Premier Brian Pallister and others in his government followed the doctor’s lead by further piling on. It started on Roussin’s Twitter feed before midnight. It carried on in the morning via statements to the media. It continued in his afternoon press briefing that overshad- owed the fact nine more Manitobans had lost their lives to COVID-19 and 474 more cases were detected. Time and time again, Roussin insisted his message about what’s permitted when it comes to social gatherings outside of a single household remained clear. Time and time again, he argued questions about confusion or inconsistencies were distractions. “We don’t need distractions now,’’ Roussin said. “Distractions are harmful to Manito- bans. The message is clear. Stay home. Only socialize within your household.” Except it wasn’t clear. Again. And once again, the Free Press and other media covering the constantly evolving public health orders and directives have delivered information to our audiences that doesn’t quite match up to the final prescription. A month ago it involved closing rules for hotel beverage rooms until they were allowed to remain open. Then it was uncertainty about how many people could attend funerals and when the new restrictions began. There’s no equivalent to the Hippocratic Oath for journalists, but the last thing I want our newsroom to do is harm our readers by leaving them unsure about what they need to do to help flatten the curve. We don’t write the public health orders. We don’t write the script for the briefings that Roussin et al. deliver. With lives on the line these days, we are trying our best to faithfully convey critical information to the broader public to help them understand what they can and can’t do. The fact that media outlets far and wide had the same questions and the same confusion about what was and wasn’t required as of 12:01 this morning suggests that someone other than reporters needs to look in the mirror. One final thought on the need for reflection about Manitoba’s public health messaging: there was a microphone free at today’s briefing for anyone from the political side of the equation to join Roussin as he was left alone to face the media. Having the doctor not only field public health questions but also ones that veered into the realm of politics may have done harm to the man who remains a key messenger in Manito- ba’s pandemic response.

Nov. 13: Taking a heavy toll

For the past few years, one of our best-read features in Saturday’s newspaper has been the profile on the front of our Passages section. Each week, A Life’s Story allows us to focus on how an everywoman or an everyman whose obituary appeared in the paper made a mark on our province. Unfortunately, this week’s feature had to be pulled, another casualty that we believe is linked to COVID-19. Given the volume of deaths in our province, we simply did not have room in Saturday’s edition to fit in all the obits without also taking over the cover story. While we were caught off-guard, no one should be surprised. The trend lines of a province now in code red have not been good for weeks. What now counts for news is not the fact that there are daily deaths, but whether there is a new record broken for COVID-linked fatalities. And if the death toll is putting pressure on the pages of our Passages section, what is it doing in hospital morgues and at funeral homes? We’ve already heard talk that refrigerator trucks are on standby to serve as temporary morgues as we saw earlier in the pandemic in cities such as New York. Of course, the biggest pressure point remains the one being shouldered by those who have lost loved ones to the disease. The question now is: how many more will share in that burden? The latest forecast for Manitoba from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evalua- tion released Thursday makes clear it’s going to get worse before it gets better. The University of Washington-based research centre’s easy-to-understand models predict the province’s daily death toll will move into double digits later next week. By the end of November, we are on track to have recorded 347 deaths. Please bear in mind the death toll now sits at 137. But within those projections, there is something to give us all hope. The daily death toll will slowly begin to fall in early December — but only if we continue with the tough restrictions in place. Any easing of the restrictions will see the daily death count track even higher. In other words, we better get used to code red restrictions well past Christmas.

Nov. 16: Cabinet ministers strangely silent Dr. Brent Roussin was clearly not a happy chief public health officer today while reflecting on an anti-COVID lockdown rally over the weekend. “We see in Steinbach, where that hospital is under a lot of strain and health-care workers are working as hard as they can to keep up with demand, and yet on the same day we have a protest, a gathering,’’ Roussin said, the disbelief and frustration clear in his eyes. “We are announcing double-digit deaths every day and then we are protesting things to try to reduce the impact of the virus? How can we reconcile that? This is the time we need to have a united front against this virus.” Turns out Roussin’s harsh medicine was merely the warm-up act for the wrath the premier was ready to dispense when he took to the stage a few hours later. “Let me be direct to the folks who participated in that rally on the weekend,” began Pallister, catching his breath before launching his broadside. “You don’t have to believe in COVID for it to be real. It is real — 100 yards away are people waiting in a parking lot to get treatment in hospital. A third of a mile away from where you are rallying, there are people dying in a nursing home. COVID is real. COVID kills people… COVID will find you if you aren’t careful.” With that out of the way, Pallister made clear that those who attended the rally in clear violation of code red restrictions are going to face the «consequences of stupidity» in the form of tickets likely to land in their mailboxes. So we’ve got the premier and the public health officer on the same page, but what about the rest of the cabinet? Let’s start with Kelvin Goertzen, the Steinbach MLA who is pretty handy when it comes to social media. Did he have anything to say about what went on his riding on the weekend? Nothing yet. Did he retweet the scolding his cabinet colleague Cliff Cul- len administered as the justice minister publicly condemned the actions of protesters? Nope. How about Health Minister Cameron Friesen? Again, just more silence. We saw last week how quick the premier and his cabinet were to take to Twitter to send out a message backing Roussin while calling out the media for stories that raised concerns about confusing lockdown rules. So we know they know how to use social media to their advantage. And yet, here we have two front-bench ministers — the cabinet duo overseeing the two largest provincial departments central to the battle against COVID — missing in action when it comes to amplifying the message that Roussin, Pallister and Cullen are trying to send about what happened over the weekend in the Tory heartland. Roussin said there needs to be a “united front against this virus.” Agreed. I’m just not sure everyone in cabinet got that memo. Nov. 17: COVID denial, from South Dakota to Steinbach

Tonight’s briefing starts with an email that landed in my inbox as I was about to drive to work and ends with one that arrived as the sun was setting and the deadline for this update was looming. That first bookend was the chilling account of a South Dakota ER nurse sharing the horror stories of patients who deny they have COVID-19 with the last breaths they›ll ever take. “I can’t help but think of the COVID patients the last few days,” Jodi Doering said in tweet that ended up making headlines far and wide. “The ones that stick out are those who still don’t believe the virus is real. The ones who scream at you for a magic medicine and Joe Biden is going to ruin the U.S.A. All while gasping for breath on 100 per cent Vapotherm. They tell you there must be another reason they are sick. They call you names and ask why you have to wear all that ‘stuff’ because they don’t have COVID because it’s not real.” It’s tempting to think that what she’s experiencing in South Dakota is an American problem. That it’s all because of red-state ravings and their hero Donald Trump, the denier-in-chief. That what’s infecting their body politic can’t possibly happen here. But then there was the reality check that came in the form of the email that serves as the other bookend to tonight’s newsletter. The greeting came from Howard in Landmark, and the text that followed talked about driving to the supposed overflowing hospital in Steinbach only to find empty parking lots and empty waiting rooms. To add an exclamation point, there was an attached photograph of a socially distanced waiting room without a soul to be seen. “Not sure what to do with this but read about Pallister’s rant today,” Howard concluded in his note to me. To tell the truth, I’m not sure what to do with this, either, but the worries I had this morning about the link between COVID lies and denial and life and death in South Dakota are now hitting much closer to home.

Nov. 18: Grim lessons from North Dakota

Last night’s update began in South Dakota. Tonight’s briefing starts in North Dakota, a state that readers of this newsletter know I pay particular attention to because our middle son is in his third year at NDSU in Fargo. What caught my eye today is an account from one of North Dakota’s contact tracers that I worry comes close to what’s now happening in Manitoba based on our front- page story Wednesday. As Kailee Leingang told the Washington Post, the virus in North Dakota is so ram- pant that contact tracing has become near impossible. “For the past two weeks, North Dakota has had the most new cases per capita in the country,’’ Leingang said. “Our hospitalizations have doubled since last month. We have the world’s highest death rate from COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus. Things got so bad, so fast, that we’ve surrendered one of our key weapons against the pandemic: test and trace went by the wayside. Even if we had enough staff to call up everyone’s workplace and contact, there are so many new infections that it wouldn’t be as effective. At this point, the government has given up on following the virus’s path through the state. All we can do is notify people, as quickly as we can, that they have the virus.” As Leingang notes, earlier in the pandemic it seemed like North Dakota was going to dodge much of the viral bullet. Much like Manitoba’s early experience, the deadly fla- reups were something happening elsewhere, far, far away. Today, as COVID swallows her state, Leingang does her best to look up every case she’s had who ended up in a morgue. “I wonder if I was the last person they spoke to before they were intubated. I read their obituaries. This is my way of reminding myself: this was a person.” We’ll have more to say about the painful pandemic lessons of North Dakota as part of a weekend feature in production, but today our Jason Bell has a story on one of those who might have been on Leingang’s contact-tracing list. His name is Tony Loeppky, a long-haul trucker originally from Altona now among the 785 COVID-related fatalities in North Dakota. “He got it from somewhere but we don’t know how, where. I don’t know what they do for contact tracing in the States, and it’s really, really bad in North Dakota now so they are probably just flying by the seat of their pants,” explained Marlow Fraser, his mother. “They didn’t say exactly how or why, but his test came back positive (two days after he died). “I have a daughter-in-law who’s a nurse and she deals with COVID patients all the time, and she said you can go from breathing normally to being intubated in an hour. We hope he went as quickly as possible.” Dying as quickly as possible. I can’t believe that’s what counts as hope these days. I can’t believe a state and a province that share the same border are now sharing the same outcomes — and nothing suggests that either is going to get better anytime soon.

Nov. 19: Encased in new restrictions

The best part of my morning commute is the gentle meander I take through Assini- boine Park. Even though I’m frequently running late, it forces me to slow down. As I mentioned in one of these briefings in the spring, when life moves at a slower speed, things you might otherwise miss come into focus. In April, my morning navigational course enabled me to see the rising Assiniboine River was finally a little bit lower, a welcome trend that meant we weren’t going to have to contend with a COVID hell and high water at the same time. On this grey November day, my route through the park revealed the ice had finally spread from the river’s edge to midstream, a sign the freeze-up we all knew was coming is about to be locked in for months. Tonight’s update didn’t include a METAPHOR ALERT at the top, but by now it should be pretty clear where this commentary is headed. The restrictions announced today really shouldn›t be a surprise to anyone who has been watching what has been transpiring in our province. For weeks, the forecast was there for all to see. The colder it got, the more we became a COVID hotspot. Case counts growing exponentially. A death toll rising as fast as the test positivity rate. Hospitals teetering on the edge. The viral current had become too strong. Expecting it to magically slow was about as sound a strategy as banking on the river to ignore the freezing point of water. I have no idea when there will be a thaw in these latest restrictions, but I will say that spring has never seemed further away.

Nov. 20: Time to come clean

You don’t need to be an epidemiologist to know that Steinbach’s test positivity rate of 40 per cent is anything but a positive development. Outside of Trump›s White House, you›d be hard pressed to find a more infectious COVID cluster than Manitoba’s third-largest city. But is the grip the coronavirus now has on Steinbach something that was expected? Did the premier and his chief public health officer have projections things could spin so wildly out of control there and elsewhere in the province? How do we determine whether any of what has now plunged the entire province into a deeply restricted red zone is an unexpected or just a logical extension of trends that began in the summer? Those are all questions that Manitobans should have answers to, regardless of whether they took any courses in epidemiology, but as we have seen time and time again since the pandemic arrived here in March, those are questions the province has refused to answer. Today, Dr. Theresa Tam, Canada’s chief public health officer, shed some light as she released a chilling forecast of the viral trajectory in a sober warning delivered to the country. Tam›s projections included a breakout for Manitoba that shows no sign of the COVID curve bending until well into 2021. I have no doubt there are similar charts in Dr. Brent Roussin’s office, and for that matter, Brian Pallister’s cabinet room. Those graphs and models have outlined a wide range of scenarios since that very first positive test result on March 12 of what to expect in terms of case counts and fatalities. Those forecasts have enabled the politicians and officials overseeing the province’s pandemic response to determine how well the battle is going. It’s allowed them to determine whether the deadly spread in nursing homes was or wasn’t inevitable. In theory, viral number-crunching has also been used to determine what additional resources were needed for the war effort. And yet, none of this has been shared with those that the government is now asking to do more. Those on the front lines — the doctors, nurses and teachers — remain in the dark. Those being told to stay away from family and friends for the foreseeable future have to do so without any information that allows them to determine whether those in charge ignored forecasts. Those with family members who haven’t yet died in nursing homes still have no inkling whether the deadly lessons from elsewhere earlier in the pandemic will be applied to reverse the tragic trend. Those in Steinbach now casting a wary eye at anyone in their community are left to wonder why they are so out of step with the rest of the province. I get that the province doesn’t want to spread panic, but that’s a tack that might work when the discussion is focused on a test positivity rate of three per cent as was the case in August in September. When the test positivity rate hits 40 per cent, it’s time to come clean.

Nov. 23: Battling boredom

Our family room furniture was rearranged for the third time since we moved into code red. And for the third straight time, I’ve failed to impress my dear wife with the latest effort to make the cover of Better Homes and Pandemics. She’s not quite sure why I moved the TV over there or how the couch landed over here. It’s certainly not because I’m trying to improve social distancing while we binge our way through Veep. Nor have I become a convert to feng shui. My best explanation is that I am simply bored. As I’ve noted here in the past, I have no hockey to play, no hockey-playing children to cheer for, and no hockey on TV. If I’m not rearranging furniture, I might have to resort to making my way down to the basement to tidy up a long-neglected tool bench and the rest of the clutter hidden behind our furnace. That day might still come, but I am praying the vaccine will get here first. I’m guessing a lot of us are in the same boat these days, even if it doesn’t involve shifting a sofa back and forth. Public health orders mean we have nowhere to go and less and less to do to help pass the time. I asked one of my editors what her plans were for a week of holidays and she highlighted having time to finally clean out her kitchen drawers. Another COVID-inspired Instagram moment! Apparently, wearing masks, washing hands and staying six feet apart are no cure for boredom. To help combat boredom, I’ve actually been thinking a lot about the state we loathe. In their book Out of My Skull: The Psychology of Boredom, psychologists James Danckert and John Eastwood offer insights on one of the consequences of the pandemic. “Boredom is more than just the feeling we get when our minds are insufficiently stimulated,’’ they write. “It’s a sign that our capacity to act as authors of our own lives has been challenged or constricted.” How we adapt, how we find agency when public health orders constrict our lives appears to be key. Numerous trips to the neighbourhood Liquor Mart aren’t the best way to adapt. That’s why I’ve now turned to furniture-rearranging. In our Uplift newsletter, Kevin Rollason offers a mix of non-COVID stories to engage and mentally occupy you — a perfect antidote for a day when Manitoba set another record for viral case counts. We all need a break from the monotony of the pandemic. We all need something uplifting. Spoiler alert: Kevin starts this week’s Uplift writing about chocolate chip cookies. Bon appetit!

Nov. 24: Let nothing you dismay…

Tonight marks one month until the eve of what promises to be a Christmas unlike any we’ve ever experienced. While I’ve noticed Christmas trees coming to their decorated lives in living rooms around the city, it’s unlikely any extended family or friends will be allowed to gather ’round to open presents. While Santa is immune to the virus, the rest of us aren’t. With apologies to Dr. Seuss, the Grinch has nothing on COVID’s ability to steal Christmas. But what if our holiday traditions are stronger than COVID and its heart that is two sizes too small? What if we can adjust and adapt so that a Merry Lockdown Christmas doesn’t stink, stank, stunk? My hope is that Doug Speirs will be able to answer those questions in a way that gives us all something to look forward to in a new seasonal series that debuts tonight. Doug’s marching orders are to search for stories that show the spirit of the season is indeed alive and well, even if it’s required to wear a mask and wash its hands repeatedly. At the same time, I’m counting on our readers to help us out by suggesting story ideas that will spread some much-needed cheer. Doug is standing by for your tips on finding the true meaning of Christmas this viral season. And when he writes them, he’ll deliver them with the strength of 10 Dougs plus two!

Nov. 25: COVID risks? Let’s talk turkey

During past American Thanksgivings, I’ve been thankful for being able to tag along to watch my two sons play high school hockey tournaments in California. We had big turkey dinners with the team. We hit Black Friday sales. We managed to get a championship banner through the crush of a passenger-laden airport, another feature of this high holiday for our southern neighbours. In recent years, Thanksgiving was a chance for our son to return home from North Dakota State University as part of the extended break for students. But this year, the closest we will get to him is another FaceTime call as he is staying put — even as many of his classmates and people from around the country are travel- ling to see family and friends. Despite the pleadings of everyone from university presidents to public health officials to be smart and safe over Thanksgiving, a new poll from Ohio State University’s Wexner Medical Centre found 40 per cent plan to attend a gathering with 10 or more people. That means passing the gravy at dinner risks passing along something that has Dr. Megan Ranney, an emergency physician and director of the Brown-Lifespan Center for Digital Health, more than a little frightened. “I’m not scared for the day itself, but for what’s going to happen, two, three and four weeks later,” she told CNBC. “You can’t get a higher risk activity than sitting around a table unmasked indoors for hours, so we’re just risking seeding hundreds of thousands, if not millions of new infections, which will then, of course, lead to hospitalizations and deaths.” If you think Dr. Ranney is being a tad dramatic, take a look at the COVID-19 Event Risk Assessment Planning tool from the Georgia Institute of Technology. The interactive tool calculates the risk you face of encountering at least one coronavirus- positive person at a gathering of 10 or more people. To my eyes, big turkey dinners gatherings should be a non-starter in much of the United States. And in Cass County, N.D., home to Fargo and NDSU, the chances of sitting down to Thanksgiving dinner with someone with COVID is 80 per cent. I’m glad I told my son to order something for Thanksgiving on Door Dash and to let me pay the bill. U.S. health experts looked to the Canadian experience of Thanksgiving for some superspreading insights about what to expect from their celebrations this week. I’m guessing Dr. Brent Roussin et al will be watching turkey dinners south of the border for signs of what might come our way when the Christmas turkey lands on dinner tables here. Let’s go to the calendar: Manitoba’s current code red order expires on Dec. 11 — exactly one 14-day incubation period before Christmas day. And Dec. 11 is exactly one incubation period after American Thanksgiving. I get that we all want holidays with family and friends, whether it is to celebrate Thanksgiving or Christmas. Unfortunately, COVID-19 doesn’t take holidays off.

Nov. 26: Falling down on contact tracing

In the early days of the pandemic, it seemed so sensible, so simple and so straightforward. An army of nurses with sleuthing skills and a healthy dose of tact were standing by to help piece together the viral puzzle behind each positive case of COVID-19 in Manitoba. We were ramping up testing capacity. We were ramping up our contact-tracing capacity. What could possibly go wrong? In the early days of the pandemic, it appeared everything was going right, more or less, with testing and tracing. But that was then and this is the now, where nothing seems sensible, simple or straightforward. Despite repeated assurances things aren’t as bad as it seems, despite repeated promises more contact-tracing capacity is just around the corner, the reality is that what was pledged in the spring is not what’s being delivered in the fall when we need it most. Our newsroom hasn’t yet been able to report on how much an impact insufficient testing and tracing capacity has had on Manitoba’s dubious distinction as the country’s viral hotspot, but there might be some clues in a Guardian report documenting how England’s “world-beating” test-and -race operation failed to follow up on COVID-19 cases at every step. According to the Guardian, overall figures show that fewer than one in four contacts of those who are infected are reached, and just four in 10 contacts of those who tested positive. The impact of cases slipping through the cracks is driven home in dramatic fashion via a graphic that starts with 100 positive cases. In short order, the breakdown of how those 100 positive cases aren’t properly tested and traced makes clear why England is stuck in lockdown. As I have argued before in this update, I am pretty sure there is a similar graphic in ministerial briefing books outlining the efficacy of Manitoba’s test-and-trace system along with an estimate of its role in yet another record high in the test positivity rate. I’d like to think the public deserves to see that graphic, given what is being asked of them in code red. But I’m guessing it’s easier to blame a hotel in Glenella named Corona. November 27: Doing what we can

The song playing on the radio as I pulled into the Free Press parking lot this morning was one I riffed on earlier in our nightly pandemic briefings. But this version of Jon Bon Jovi’s quarantine-inspired hit, Do What You Can, was all the better because it was performed as a duet with Jennifer Nettles. I made sure I turned it up loud as the chorus speaks to the focus of tonight’s briefing, the launch of our Miracle on Mountain in aid of the Christmas Cheer Board. For its first 100 years, the Cheer Board always found a way to deliver hampers to the city’s needy, but after a century of success, COVID-19 has put that tradition on hold. Instead of hampers, food vouchers will be sent out to ensure there’s still something for everyone on the Christmas dinner table. While the Cheer Board is doing what it can, reaching its fundraising goals remains a tall mountain to climb. That’s where you come in as we are again counting on our readers to do what they can to help. Last year’s campaign raised $80,000, and if ever there was a need for a Miracle on Mountain, a Christmas in the heart of a pandemic is it. Please consider making a donation — cheques can be sent to Miracle on Mountain, c/o 1355 Mountain Ave., Winnipeg, MB, R2X 3B6, or use the drop-down menu here — that shows ‹round here we bend but don›t break.

Nov. 30: Manitobans deserve a COVID forecast

We went into November and code red with 69 deaths from COVID-19. We leave November still in code red with 312 deaths from a virus that remains out of control. Question: would things have been any different if we entered November and code red knowing how many Manitobans were projected to become COVID fatalities? I ask this question because plenty of questions need to be asked after this most deadly of months that may in fact be a precursor to an even deadlier December unless there›s a Christmas miracle. My hunch is the shock value alone that the province could lose 237 people — Man- itoban grandmothers, grandfathers, parents and yes, even children — would have triggered a change in behaviour. More would have been willing to follow doctor’s orders to stay home. More would have donned masks. More would have reduced their social circles. And yet, Dr. Brent Roussin, Brian Pallister and others in cabinet declined to offer a detailed picture of the scale of the crisis that awaited us. None of this could have been a surprise to the chief public health officer, the premier or any of his ministers given the forecasting models at their fingertips. They all knew what was on the line in November. They all knew the range of deadly scenarios linked to exponential growth in case counts. But instead, all they provided to Manitobans was the daily body count and perfunctory expression of condolences. What makes all of this even more problematic is there’s no sign of any change coming. As always, the public is being asked to do a lot, to give up a lot, to sacrifice a lot to flatten the curve. As always, the public is given little in the way of information what that curve actually looks like — how many people’s lives are truly on the line. Manitobans are used to responding to forecasts, especially in winter. If we are told it’s going to be -40 C, we bundle up. If we hear a blizzard will dump 30 centimetres of snow, making roads treacherous, we know to stay home. If only we’d had a similar forecast on the COVID front, one foreshadowing that a viral blizzard was going to hit in November. The movie Groundhog Day was a great comedy, but it›s certainly not the best script for battling a pandemic as reliving the same lack-of-information time loop is becoming deadlier by the day. Tuesday, Dec. 1, 2020: A risky Christmas party

I haven’t officially announced the news to our newsroom, in large part because I’m pretty sure everyone knew it wasn’t going to happen this year. But just in case someone was holding out hope, I’ll make it official right here: no Vir- ginia, there won’t be a newsroom Christmas party. I’m guessing that’s the standard answer in offices and workplaces around our city and province as dreams of a white Christmas face the reality of code red. The same holds true for all those festive block parties, holiday drinks with friends and the other seasonal gatherings that made the lead-up to Christmas so hectic, but also so special. Suddenly everyone’s social calendar is wide open. Our dance cards are empty. And for good reason. Unless, of course, you happen to know someone who lives in the White House. If so, then you could be on the invite list for the 20 holiday parties scheduled despite the public messaging to stay home for everyone outside 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. “The president and Mrs. Trump request the pleasure of your company at a holiday reception to be held at the White House,” reads the cursive text displayed under a presidential seal in one red-and-gold party invitation in a New York Times report. Outside the walls of the White House, Washington’s mayor has restricted indoor gatherings in the city to no more than 10 people. But in case you’re thinking that Donald Trump’s pandemic-denying parties are defying the mayor’s orders, he’s actually in the clear because the property has a federal exemption. So if you do get a presidential invitation to party at the White House, there’s no risk of breaking any laws as you enjoy some red wine in the Red Room. But given how White House events have frequently turned out to be superspreader events, would you really want to risk it?

Dec. 2: On the lighter side

Over the past eight months, I’ve tried several things with this nightly newsletter. There’s been plenty of pointed criticism, given the gravity of the pandemic. There’s been more sharing about the Samyn family in lockdown than my wife ever wanted anyone to read. When Manitoba flattened the curve in the summer, I frequently looked south of the border for lessons to be learned, or sometimes just stuff that would make us give our heads a collective shake. I hope some of what I wrote has offered inspiration, or at least some perspective to help you through these extraordinary times. And on occasion, I’d like to think that my attempts at humour might have at least brought a smile to your face. Alas, since code red began here in Manitoba, there’s been little to laugh about. That’s what happens when your newsroom is constantly writing about a rising caseload and daily double-digit death tolls. But it’s time to change up my pitch, so tonight I am looking to headlines from afar for some much-needed comic relief. The first comes from New Orleans, where a swingers convention ended up being, how shall we put it, a superspreader event. Apparently, social distancing was not the preferred position of those who attended the 2020 Naughty N’awlins event for those in the lifestyle eager to connect despite COVID-19. Some 250 checked into the New Orleans hotel hosting the event not sanctioned by the Centres for Disease Control. At least 41 who checked out ended up taking COVID-19 home with them. “If I could go back in time, I would not produce this event again,” event organizer Bob Hannaford wrote. “I wouldn’t do it again if I knew then what I know now. It weighs on me and it will continue to weigh on me until everyone is 100 per cent better.” If a viral swinging convention wasn’t bad enough, there was also a lockdown orgy in Brussels that involved a senior Member of the European Parliament from Hungary. Police eventually broke up the party that involved 25 naked men in clear violation of COVID restrictions. Among those found breaking the law was Hungarian MEP Jozsef Szajer, who handed police his diplomatic passport. I don’t believe diplomatic immunity protects you from COVID-19. I know things are bad here in Manitoba, and there are all sorts of questions about the province’s response to the pandemic, but at least our convention centre hasn’t been taken over by swingers and our politicians haven’t been busted for forgetting the fundamentals at some lockdown orgy. Or at least, not that we know. And if you know either happened, please send me a news tip, as I’m always looking for something to put in this newsletter.

Dec. 3: Take part in a fireside chat

One of the readers of this nightly update told me how much he looked forward to what he called my fireside chat. I hadn’t thought of our pandemic briefings in those terms, but the reference to FDR’s evening radio addresses did have a nice ring to it. I could almost hear myself echoing the 32nd U.S. president›s famous quote, «The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.›› As much as that historic sound bite resonates in the heart of a pandemic, I thought we should create some sound bites of our own by amplifying these fireside chats in a way that broadens the conversation, the perspective and the insights we all need to get through today’s global challenge. So next week, our nightly briefing will move to a special daytime show for a virtual town hall from our newsroom that you are all invited to attend. We have put together a panel of four experts from various fields to share their views on the pandemic and our province. They are also ready to answer questions from you, our readers. Here’s who we have lined up for our online forum, “Manitoba’s Pandemic: What went wrong and how do we make things right again?” • Dr. Ali Mokdad, from the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation that has been forecasting Manitoba’s case counts and death toll; • Dr. Joel Kettner, former chief public health officer of Manitoba who oversaw the province’s response to H1N1; • Melanie MacKinnon from Ongomiizwin, the Indigenous Institute of Health and Healing in the Rady Faculty of Health Sciences; • Andrew Enns of the polling firm Leger, who can offer insight into public attitudes toward the pandemic. Please mark Thursday, Dec. 10 on your calendar for this hour-long chat that will begin at 11 a.m. We will livestream the conversation on YouTube live, where you will be able ask questions of our panelists in real time by utilizing the chat function next to the video stream. Winnipeg Free Press subscribers will have the opportunity to send questions ahead of time by emailing them to [email protected] (please include the email address associated with your account or a home delivery address), which we will compile and use to help guide our live discussion. I look forward to hearing from as many of you as possible at this virtual fireside chat.

Dec. 4: Staying safe, staying active

The outdoor hockey rink in our neighbourhood doesn’t look as if it will be ready for me to be skating on anytime soon. Unlike past years at this point in December, there’s no sign of any ice-making. I’m not sure if that’s because of COVID-19 or the weather of late, which has been about the only bright spot at this point in the pandemic. Since I couldn’t skate on this rare day off, I hit the trail for a long run in sunshine that made it feel more like October than December. No tuque. No mitts. Just a big warm smile for 10k. I was not the only one on the Harte Trail today, and I’m going to take that as another positive sign that’s a sharp contrast to all the positive tests we worry about these days. For months now, public health messages have hammered away at all the things we can’t do. But as David Leonhardt pointed out in his morning briefing for the New York Times, they haven’t been telling us what we can do with only a small amount of risk. “Human beings are social creatures,” he wrote. “Most aren’t going to sit inside their house for months on end. And pretending otherwise tends to backfire. It leads people to ignore public health advice and take needlessly big risks.’’ There’s little risk going outside to enjoy the weather forecast for this weekend and well into next week. If and when my neighbourhood rink opens, that outdoor skate will be another low-risk option: my preference for late night skates when it’s -30 C means I get the rink all to myself. We all know living in code red is hard. When winter finally arrives, it will be that much harder. But please don’t make it harder on yourself by avoiding the things you can still do. Be safe. Be smart. Be active. Be outdoors.

Dec. 7: A cheese-y analogy

I could almost hear the bugle call of the cavalry charge as the headline landed on our website today. Not only was the vaccine for COVID-19 ready to be delivered to Canada, but nearly 10,000 doses could be in Manitoba before the end of the year. But as much as I love old Westerns, we probably shouldn’t be thinking of the vaccine as the cavalry riding to our rescue. Instead, we need to consider cheese. To be more specific, Swiss cheese. While I prefer a pungent Danish Blue – and not just because it’s made from the cultures of the mould penicillium – the food for thought that applies in the case of pandemic needs to be a holey metaphor. Originally used as a way to examine why accidents happen, the viral version of the Swiss Cheese Model recognizes there is no single way to stop COVID-19. Every layer of intervention we employ is imperfect, or to carry on with the Swiss cheese analogy, has holes that the virus can exploit. But the more layers we add, the harder it is for the virus to penetrate and carry on its infectious spread. The more layers we add, the closer we get to being safer. An updated visualization of the Swiss cheese model that’s been making the rounds on Twitter divides the layers of cheese into personal responsibilities such as washing hands, social distancing and wearing masks and those that are shared responsibilities that tend to fall to government. That last layer of Swiss cheese now about to be served will rely on government to get it right. I know it will be some time before any of us will be able to gather at some fancy wine- and-cheese event. But when that day does come, I am sure that slice of Swiss cheese will taste even better.

Dec. 8: Keep COVID out of Christmas

We all got an early Christmas present on the same day it was announced we’ll all have to endure a code-red Christmas. Outside the Manitoba Legislative Building, a record high temperature was set for Dec. 8 — another gift from this warming trend that has raised expectations of a green Christmas. Alas, inside the Manitoba Legislative Building, the COVID-19 trend lines weren›t anywhere near the point where lockdown restrictions could be eased. “All those people in your family you normally gather with, if you find alternate ways to gather this year, you are protecting them,’’ was the message Dr. Brent Roussin unwrapped. “And you are doing your part to protect the people you love.” If you don’t like the chief public health officer’s orders for a Corona Christmas, then maybe you might want to take a cue from his colleague in Washington, Dr. Anthony Fauci. As it turns out, Fauci turns 80 on Christmas Eve. But the infectious disease expert who became a household name during the pandemic knows what’s required even though a milestone birthday and Santa will be arriving at the same time. “We’re going to have a Zoom celebration with my wife and I in my house, and my children scattered throughout the country,” Fauci explained. So there’s your second opinion. It won’t be easy for Fauci, Roussin or any of us to have a socially-distanced Christmas. But since the virus doesn’t take holidays off, we can’t afford to ease up on shared responsibilities. A Zoom Christmas wasn’t on anyone’s wish list. Here’s hoping it’s the last one we are all forced to live through.

Dec. 9: A virtual town hall

FULL DISCLOSURE: The opening to tonight’s briefing is strictly promotional in nature as it comes with a personal invite/nudge to join our virtual townhall on Thursday at 11 a.m. CST. We’ve assembled a panel of experts to discuss Manitoba’s pandemic experience and to take questions from our readers. With the extension of the code red restrictions just announced along with today’s news of the imminent arrival of the vaccine in Mani- toba, I can’t think of a better time for us to look at what went wrong in our province with COVID-19 and how we can make it right. At one level, Thursday’s discussion is a natural extension of the conversations I’ve had with many of you over the past months based on what you’ve read in this newsletter. I’m looking forward to hosting that conversation and then sharing with you some takeaways in Thursday’s edition of this newsletter. In the meantime, here’s the link to the livestream as well as some more information on the panel.

Dec. 10: Earning a pandemic degree

How many of you feel like you’ve been slowly working your way toward a degree in epidemiology over the past nine months? It’s not like any of us signed up for the coursework. And if we could, we’d all love to drop it. But when your life is suddenly upended by a pandemic with an endless appe- tite for lives, you start learning as you go. I’d never heard of R-naught until the spring. I’m positive I knew nothing about rolling five-day positivity rates. Aerosols weren’t something I feared. My knowledge of lag time between infections and deaths as an indicator of pandemic progression clearly lagged. And yet, there I was this morning on an hour-long Zoom call with leading experts on the public health crisis consuming the planet, those on the front lines of the response to COVID-19 and a polling expert tracking public attitudes to the coronavirus. There was much to learn from our virtual conversation — including the fact there is much more we still don’t know. As a seminar for those desperately trying to arm themselves with a greater understanding of the defining issue of our time, it was never intimidating, always illuminating. You can watch a replay of the livestream here – and don›t worry, there won›t be a test to follow. I need to thank our panelists – Dr. Ali Mokdad, Melanie MacKinnon, Andrew Enns and Dr. Joel Kettner – for making time to share their expertise with us. I want to extend our appreciation to the readers and viewers who sent in questions for the panel. And if you like what you saw, please let us know so we can organize another online master class to get you a little closer to your pandemic degree.

Dec. 11: Holidays looking a little different

The front page picture in today’s Free Press is a window into what a virus-infected holiday season will look like — and not just because our photographer had to shoot it through a window. In the photograph that captured the Hanukkah glow filling the Rose family’s dining room, the eight-day Jewish celebration began amid the realities of Code Red restrictions. No big family gathering. No massive feast. Yes to tradition, but in a socially-distanced way.

MIKAELA MACKENZIE / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS The Rose family celebrates Hanukkah during Code Red restrictions in Winnipeg. I’m sure we will capture similar scaled-down celebrations come Christmas through the lens of our photographer’s cameras forced to focus on what’s on the inside of more dining room windows. But just because our holiday celebrations will be different, does that mean they’ll be bad? And what if we looked to hit pause until we could celebrate safely in style? I honestly don’t know the answer to either of those questions, in part because I’m focused on finding wrapping paper — a mission my dear wife tasked we with that I fear might need a Christmas miracle. But two notes from readers of this newsletter certainly got me thinking there may be a way for us to find some silver linings amid code red restrictions. The first came to me shortly before the lighting of the menorah candles and shared the secret comfort and joy a certain woman and her friends in their sixties are feeling now that they are no longer burdened by the big family dinners, the entertaining of aging grandparents, young grandchildren and everything else over the holidays. “We wouldn’t always want this, but occasionally it is nice not to be doing all the inviting, meal planning, shopping, Christmas baking, preparing and freezing dishes for days in advance, cleaning the house, setting tables, cleaning up, having houseguests, etc.,’’ she wrote. Instead, this year’s holidays come with the gift of getting “quiet time to themselves.” The other note was a novel solution to the realities of the novel coronavirus — push Christmas into July. “It’s going to be hard to stay home, apart, no families and friends, no parties... and ‘next year’ seems ages away. What if we focus instead on something ‘novel’ that gives us a shorter timeline to look forward to? Even if we aren’t all vaccinated by July, we’ll likely be able to gather outdoors in larger groups — and certainly in better weather.” Her pitch even came with a campaign ready slogan for Twitter, #christmasinjuly. “I realize this doesn’t address the religious significance of the holiday — and I don’t diminish that. The holy days could be observed and celebrated as best as can be virtually in December. July celebrations could focus on reconnecting and honouring some of the traditions that have to be put aside for safety sake this December.” I’m not sure how widespread the feelings are of relief from those spared the stress of the holiday season or a desire to push Christmas into July. But if either gets me off the hook of finding some Christmas wrapping paper for my dear wife, then count me in.

Dec. 14: Heroism takes a toll

In the relative calm of our pandemic summer, Dr. Brent Roussin tried to take a break from the briefing grind and the rest of the burden that falls on the chief public health officer. Alas, those holiday plans fell victim to COVID-19 and so the good doctor’s vacation was cut short and he was back on duty. In theory, Roussin is about to get another chance at a holiday over the holidays. As of this week, the daily COVID-19 press briefings will be reduced in favour of updates only on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. The holiday briefing schedule also won’t include Christmas Day, Boxing Day or New Year’s Day. As well, get ready to see Dr. Jazz Atwal, Manitoba’s acting deputy chief provincial public health officer, at the microphone as a substitute for Roussin. Meanwhile, Mon- ika Warren, COVID-19 operations lead and chief nursing officer at Health Sciences Centre will spell off Shared Health chief nursing officer Lanette Siragusa at the briefings. If in fact, Roussin does get a vacation, that’s a good thing — and not just for him and his family. In every life-and-death battle, we tend to look for heroes. While Roussin doesn’t wear a cape, he has at times appeared to take on that role — making difficult decisions, remaining calm in the face of a growing calamity, offering reassurances when desperately needed. But a pandemic is not a Marvel comic. And relying on heroes to save the day ain’t going to work. “Why do we value heroes?” asked Joseph J. Fins, the chief of medical ethics at the Weill Cornell Medical Center in Manhattan. “Because heroes assume a disproportionate share of the burden…. A pandemic response based on heroism is a thin reed.” But I worry a thin line of doctors and nurses is what we are relying upon as we head into these holidays. Front-line health care has been stretched to the breaking point for months. There is only so much more that those in our hospitals and nursing homes can shoulder. As Jordan Kisner noted in the same Atlantic article in which she quoted Fins, the moral and emotional weight of treating dying COVID patients has become overwhelming for some: “There has been a rash of suicides among critical-care providers around the world, and studies suggest high levels of psychological trauma among frontline personnel. Many are leaving the field or retiring early, citing exhaus- tion.” Like Roussin and Siragusa, doctors and nurses have been forced into heroic roles over the past 10 months. But they need a break, too. The fact they are unlikely to get much of one over Christmas speaks to both their courage and the cowardice of our pandemic response.

Dec. 15: A one-man show

At face value, today’s Canadian Press report about Brian Pallister thinking of ap- pointing a second health minister in the midst of a pandemic sort of makes sense. As the premier noted in his year-end interview, the portfolio pressures on Health Minister Cameron Friesen are immense, even in normal times. But dig a little deeper and you have to wonder how much difference another health minister is going to make at this point in Manitoba’s viral story. For better or worse, Manitoba’s first minister appears determined that he be the only one allowed to make a lasting impression with voters. Day after day, week after week, it is Pallister making the announcements, fielding the questions and taking in the spotlight. For days and weeks, Friesen’s front-bench status has been all but benched. But at least he’s not alone. In the midst of the biggest economic challenge to face the province, when was the last time Finance Minister Scott Fielding took centre stage? In theory, Heather Stefanson is the deputy premier — but to what end? In earlier days, Rochelle Squires was more than able to think on her feet while delivering the good, the bad and the ugly until the municipal relations minister was socially-distanced out of view. These days, though, the Team Manitoba the premier said would get us through the pandemic has largely become a party of one. So if we do soon get another health minister, I wish her or him well. Wishing we might actually see them in action — well, that’s unlikely to be in the cabinet cards.

Dec. 16: Hitting the wall

The handmade Christmas card that landed on my desk this morning had a beautiful piece of artwork from a four-year-old on the cover, and an honest and caring message on the inside. In lovely handwriting, the family shared their need to cut out social media and news to preserve their mental health in the pandemic. They talked about how closing down one space opened up a new space filled with family dinners together, endless baking, hikes here and there and even learning guitar. They thanked me for this nightly newsletter that’s still part of their reading list before adding a prayer that I will continue to find creative ways to write about COVID-19. The timing of their card couldn’t have been better, because I was well on my way to writing about numbness for tonight’s newsletter. To paraphrase Pink Floyd, I wonder if a steady diet for the past 10 months of rising case counts, endless deaths, lockdowns, outbreaks, restrictions and disappointment upon dismay has left us comfort- ably numb. What we couldn’t have imagined prior to March 12 has now been recalibrated as our new normal. What we wouldn’t have tolerated before is now just part of doing our part. What would have once been shocking — think nursing homes becoming killing fields — is now the baseline. There has been so much that has washed over us, so much that we’ve had to process, that we’ve become immune to the emotions we might have once had. And then a Christmas card like this lands on my desk from someone who has been reading what I write each night. A card that reminds me of connections that have been built in spite of this pandemic. A card that not only wishes me all the blessings of the season, but also a few outdoor rinks so I can again play hockey. Any numbness is now gone. There is a smile on my face and a thank you that started in my heart before making its way to the fingers that typed tonight’s opening.

Dec. 17: Rethinking school protocols

Since the pandemic struck Manitoba there have been 22,047 confirmed cases of COVID-19, which means there are 22,047 stories in our viral province. Today, we are going to focus on one of those stories, a tale that went sideways despite the best of efforts, a narrative that raises more questions about what’s happening in schools than we have been able to answer. As our education reporter Maggie Macintosh learned, two work-from-home parents shrunk their family of four’s bubble in the springtime and kept it as tight as possible even when school reopened for their children in September. They traded visits with grandparents, dinner parties and extracurricular activities for their children’s education and well-being in public school. And yet, earlier this month the telltale symptoms appeared the same day a letter from their oldest daughter’s class arrived home advising of an exposure at her school. In short order, the parents and their child joined the list of positive cases. “Our bubble is our kids’ school, that’s where all the contact happens,” the father told Maggie during a phone call on a recent weekday, while still experiencing extreme fatigue and still in quarantine with his family. In his mind, their infection traces back to the school, but there hasn’t been any noti- fication of an outbreak at that school and no letters were sent home to other families about what appears to be a widening exposure. “This is why we need more testing and more surveillance because we have no idea who got it first,” he said. “There’s more evidence to suggest (it was in school) than something else, and so, that’s why I want this to be taken seriously — because the next family might not do as well with COVID. Someone might get seriously sick. Someone might get hospitalized. Someone could die. It’s scary to think about.” In the age of COVID, risks are everywhere and no system can ensure the virus doesn’t find a way to spread. The province’s slogan, “Restoring Safe Schools,” is just that — not a guarantee. As of Thursday, the province has identified 1,901 cases related to K-12 schools in Manitoba. Students make up nearly three-quarters of the total cases. Friday marks the last day of school in this most unusual of terms. Let’s hope the Christmas break and the two-week remote learning period that will then follow for many students will allow for a rethink and a reset of protocols that will make for a safer second term.

Dec. 18: A dent in drunk driving?

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away from COVID-19, my reporting assignment was to get drunk under the watchful eyes of the police. The feature, timed to coincide with the Christmas party season, was designed as a cautionary tale about drinking and driving. Along with a female newsroom colleague, we set out to mimic a typical holiday gathering. Every half-hour we would down another drink. And every hour, we would blow into the breathalyzer. For the first two hours, my blood alcohol reading barely moved, but by the third hour, it was on its way to .08. Somewhere during that fourth hour, I sped past the legal impairment level with no signs of slowing down anytime soon. Alas, my colleague was even further gone, which meant I got stuck having to write up our drink, drank, drunk feature. I thought about that assignment today when it was announced the traditional holiday Checkstop program has been cancelled. Instead, police will try to nab drunk drivers the old-fashioned-but-socially-distanced way by spotting them in traffic. In theory, the pandemic will reduce the number of drunk drivers on the road this year. Bars are closed. Holiday parties are banned. Code red restrictions mean we should really all be staying put at home while drowning our sorrows. So far, Winnipeg police have laid fewer charges this holiday season compared to a year ago, but police have detected a worrying trend as those impaired-driving arrests are coming during daylight hours instead of the more typical period surrounding midnight. Unfortunately, drunk driving was a pandemic before COVID-19 and sadly it will remain one long after. If only there was a vaccine for that deadly virus, too.

Dec. 21: Brighter days are coming For a health minister who had gone dark for weeks, the winter solstice would seem an odd time to return to the spotlight. But on the darkest day of the year, there was indeed a virtual version of Cameron Friesen delivering a sunny message about where Manitoba was on its pandemic path. “Today is the darkest day and the thing about the winter solstice is it does represent that darkest day but it also represents a turning point,’’ Friesen said as he dialed into the province’s COVID briefing. “It represents a turning of the tide, where the days begin to become longer and that creates hope for a lot of Manitobans.” Hope can be a funny thing. What we cling to is sometimes related to how desperate we are for a glimmer of good news. Six months ago, as Manitoba marked the summer solstice, there was nothing but hope on the horizon. Just two new cases of COVID-19 were announced. The number of active cases was only 13, the number of deaths remained at seven and the province was kicking off the third phase of its reopening strategy. Today, as code red restrictions drag on and on, hope comes in the form of news that the new daily case count is only 167 while the death toll was but four. We all need some solace amid the darkness of this solstice. For some, the fresh blan- ket of snow that greeted us this morning might have been the comfort craved. For others, it might be the promise of a coming vaccine shot. I get that the tunnel we’ve been staring at for far too long might have numbed us to the light at the end now flickering. While faint, it is indeed there. It’s what got Friesen out of his dark space. It’s what can help us get through a winter of pandemic discontent. It’s the promise of brighter days that are coming, even if they can’t get here soon enough.

Dec. 22: Comfort, and joy

Our doorbell has been pretty quiet for much of code red. But on Monday evening, it suddenly chimed, and for a moment, we weren’t sure what to do. Assuming it was a courier alerting us to another cardboard parcel drop, our son eventually made his way to the front door. Upon opening it, he discovered a beautifully decorated cardboard box in the hands of a woman wearing a mask. She said the gift was for his parents. He said thank you. The door was then closed and in short order, I was opening up the box to reveal a lovely collection of ginger snaps and shortbread. The thing about this much-appreciated gift is not that it came from a stranger. We know the family that signed the accompanying card, although they’ve never before been to our home. Rather, it’s the wonder that their desire to say thank you for what I write each night in this newsletter was enough to brave the cold and the deep snow on our unshovelled front steps. I worry about the endless monotony that has been one of the side-effects of COVID-19. There are no trips. No evenings out. No shows to see. Nowhere to go but home. Just an endless blur of more of the same. In theory, Christmas will offer a break from the monotony. But for the moment, that remains an unproven theory in danger of unravelling by the realities of where we are in the pandemic. And then something small, something unexpected arrives. Suddenly, the pandemic that was so big, so all-consuming, seems a little less so. That’s comfort and joy. That’s a gift worth sharing.

Dec. 23: No place like home

On this day last year, our family was boarding a plane for a one-week getaway to Mexico. It wasn’t exactly a surprise Christmas present, but it was one that took some convincing to get everyone on board. I didn’t have to play the father-knows-best-card, but I worried that with one son starting his first full-time job after graduating from university, another one studying in the United States and a daughter in her final years of high school, we might soon run out of time for family holidays. So the all-inclusive tickets were booked. The suntan lotion packed. And we set off on a trip for our warmest-ever Christmas and a truly memorable holiday. I’ve thought about that trip a lot this past year. In a perfect world, we would back there again for another Feliz Navidad, but in the world in which we are now trapped, I’m not sure when any of us will again be jetting off for a tropical vacation. With apologies to Perry Como, there’s no place like home for the holidays — in large part because there’s nowhere else we can go. I’m not sure our children will necessarily see this imposed-family Christmas as a blessing, but the fact we are all healthy and will all be present for a turkey dinner under the same roof is a gift many won’t get this year. I pray this very Corona Christmas and these work-around holiday celebrations will not become the new normal, the new tradition. In the meantime, I was struck by the reality check issued by the head of an institution defined by tradition — whose roots go back to that very first Christmas. “Instead of complaining in these difficult times about what the pandemic prevents us from doing, let us do something for someone who has less,” Pope Francis said in a pre-Christmas tweet. “Not the umpteenth gift for ourselves and our friends, but for a person in need whom no one thinks of!” Amen to that! And with that, I will wish you and yours all the best that is possible this season. This newsletter will be off for the next week as we are giving the crew that prepares it nightly a well-deserved break. We will be back in your inbox on Dec. 31 with a special New Year’s Eve edition.

New Year’s Eve 2020: Thank you for joining us

Note to readers of this nightly newsletter: My introduction to tonight’s briefing builds on my annual tradition of a New Year’s message to our readers. The text below was posted online last night and appeared in the final print edition of 2020 this morning – but I wanted to add something more in this note because this newsletter has been among the most amazing experiences in my time as editor. As I have mentioned previously, this nightly COVID-19 update was very much a flying-by-the-seat-of-the-pants initiative drawn up on a napkin as the pandemic hit our province. But not only did it achieve liftoff, it also gained altitude so that its readership now exceeds that of our print subscriber base. I still don’t know how I managed to find something to say each night to you. But I am so glad that you have been there to read what I wrote and to let me know what you were thinking and feeling as we journey through this pandemic together. Stay healthy and safe, and all the best in 2021!

The New Year’s Eve party that ushered in my 2020 seems like a lifetime ago. A neighbourhood collection of hockey parents crowded into a basement. Finger foods and drinks. Handshakes, hugs and kisses. At the stroke of midnight, we staggered out into the cold for a fireworks show that lit up the sky. On that night, we had no idea what was silently headed our way, how our lives would be changed, disrupted and upended in ways we could never have imagined. Exactly 365 days later, we now know all too well and all too painfully what this year has wrought. To say 2020 was a dumpster fire doesn’t even come close; at least dumpster fires can be extinguished. When the pandemic hit Manitoba on March 12, the Free Press — like newspapers everywhere — was at risk because of underlying conditions that long predate COVID-19. The virus spread and our business model, still reliant on advertising dollars, began to falter as the economy was induced into a coma. There were more than a few nights where I worried how long we could keep this newsroom going. In those first frightful weeks, there was an urgency to everything we did. And in the urgency of that essential journalism, something unforeseen began to take root. Each day, more people were signing up to become paid readers at a rate that exceeded even our wildest forecasts. Every week, the number of stories read trended higher. After a month, we started to get notes of encouragement and cards of thanks. Then the donations started to come in from readers who wanted to do more to help us weather the viral storm. More than a few seniors sent their $200 cheque from the special provincial pandemic payment our way. In the case of one of those generous donations, the reader told me to do whatever I thought was best for our newsroom, whether it was buying ink or drinks. I opted for a socially distanced happy hour at an outdoor pop-up bar at Assiniboine Park (where my staff ran up a bill that went well past $200!). Despite the restrictions, the lockdowns and the imposed remoteness of the pandemic, the connection deepened between the Free Press and those we serve with our journalism. That connection has strengthened our bottom line at a time when we desperately needed it. That connection ensured our newsroom grew rather than retreated. That connection will allow us to do more in 2021 to cover the virus and all the other stories that matter to you, too. There won’t be any fireworks when I ring in 2021, as I’ve had enough pandemic-triggered pyrotechnics to last a lifetime. But there will be a toast of thanks to you and the rest of our readership for all you’ve done for the Free Press, and all that you’ve enabled us to do. Monday, Jan. 4, 2021: Antidote to misinformation

The Union Jack in our backyard has seen better days. Tattered and torn, faded and flagging, what’s barely clinging to the pole on our deck is an apt metaphor for my dear wife’s homeland. Between Brexit and the coronavirus, the mother country has become a tad shambolic. Whatever hope existed that the new year was going to be better than the annus horribilis just passed is now on life support as Prime Minister Boris Johnson today announced the strictest possible national lockdown for the country. While Johnson can point to the new, more infectious variant of COVID-19 for this latest crisis, there’s another constant at play that has been helping spread the pandemic — denial. In London, the latest delusional outbreak came on New Year’s Eve not far from the British Parliament. A group of unmasked protesters gathered in front of the same London hospital where staff fought to save Johnson›s life when he was stricken by the deadly virus last spring. As the clock counted down the end of 2020, they chanted that COVID is a hoax. If only there was a vaccine for the infodemic that spreads falsehoods faster than facts. As the COVID deniers were delivering their New Year’s Eve message, Dr. Rachel Clarke, a palliative care specialist in England, was dispensing hers by railing at the misinformation and media management she partly blames for the plight now facing her country. “Like every NHS doctor and nurse here, I am being constantly abused, (I’ve even on occasion, been threatened with rape or death) for saying Covid is real and deadly and overwhelming our hospitals right now, “ Clarke said in a Twitter thread. In Clarke’s view, those putting their lives on the line are desperate to show the reality of their ICU wards and emergency departments. But, she argues, they aren’t allowed to because of a centralized communication strategy that probably goes straight to No. 10 Downing St. “Let the cameras in. Counter the misinformation with facts... If you don’t I am genu- inely fearful you will indirectly cause greater suffering and more deaths by uninten- tionally feeding those who seek to disinform. The scamdemic artists, the oh-it’s-all- false-positives brigade.” Clarke’s antidote would likely work here, too. For much of the pandemic, there’s been next to nothing to show what’s really been going on in Manitoba hospitals and care homes. The voices of doctors and nurses have been largely silenced. It was only after the province was well into the second month of code red restrictions that the media was finally allowed to gather and distribute images from COVID wards at the province’s largest hospital. I’d say that was too little, too late. Fear is an evolutionary response that allows us to take action to protect ourselves. If we had really known the threat we were facing, if we had been allowed to see what was happening, maybe the pleas to social distance, to stay home — to do whatever it takes to flatten the curve — would have resonated with the public. Maybe facts could have countered fiction. Alas, much like in England, Manitoba’s pandemic leadership was reluctant to be straight with the public, lest a sense of panic be created. But there is still time to act, to make a difference and to save lives by running Dr. Clarke’s prescription up the flagpole.

Jan. 5: Politicians in a bubble

I’ve been developing a theory about how the pandemic has been affecting not just our politicians but also their ability to respond to the extraordinary viral challenge confronting governments everywhere. And on the day that Premier Brian Pallister added some new faces to his cabinet circle, I figured now’s the time to present my thesis that comes with the working title, Democracy Needs More Than Zoom. For 10 months now, politicians have been without the normal feedback loop that has long served as a critical connection to the public. Among COVID’s casualties, we need to add the chicken dinners, the summer barbeque circuit, the business breakfasts, the community luncheons and a host of other touchpoints. Those are the places where ears would be bent, arms twisted, eyes opened. Those were the places politicians could get out of their bubbles to meet with real people — not the types you find everywhere in the corridors of power. Alas, one of the side-effects of the public-health orders is that politicians have become too socially distant, too remote. And when I talk about politicians, I mean those of all stripes at all levels of government. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has largely hunkered down in Ottawa, seemingly content to govern from a podium set up in front of his home. With the exception of missions to Ottawa that are long on days spent in the capital and short on any real meetings, Pallister has been limited to the Manitoba Legislative Building, his man- sion on Wellington Crescent or his rural retreat near Portage la Prairie. Mayor Brian Bowman’s social calendar used to have more events than there were days in the month. These days, the best Bowman can do is feed his Twitter feed. To be sure, all have used Zoom, but video conferencing can’t replace what’s been lost, and that means we all lose because something politicians depended upon on hasn’t been there when we most needed them to have it. Here in Manitoba, there’s a chance the three new faces added to the Pallister’s inner circle will be able to inject experiences and lessons that have been missing as part of the government’s COVID-19 deliberations. If so, then that will be good for the province’s curve. Who knows, they might even be able to remind the premier what those in the real world think of those in positions of power who ignored stay-at-home orders over the Christmas holidays.

Jan. 6: Not immune to insurrection

Most days, our newsroom discussions revolve around coverage of COVID-19. But today we had a new threat to discuss as we shook our heads in stunned disbelief at the shocking images spilling across the big-screen TV. That’s what happens when an angry mob storms the U.S. Capitol in a bid to trump the verdict voters delivered at the ballot box during the presidential election. God bless America! While there are now multiple vaccines for COVID, I worry a democratic booster shot might not be enough to stop the viral spread of the MAGA-infection-turned-insurrection. So let’s shift the focus from Washington to Winnipeg, where at least there’s an immunization initiative that holds the promise of better days. I use the word “promise” because that’s all we have for now. In other words, there’s a long, long way to go between vials now in cold storage and the multitude of jabs needed to deliver herd immunity. To help track that critical journey, we are introducing a new feature in tonight’s briefing. Michael Pereira, the data journalist who prepares the graphs that follow my nightly intro, will be tracking how many doses are available in Manitoba and how many have been administered. Michael’s graphs will enable you to see the progress being made on this critical front in the war against COVID-19 as well as how Manito- ba’s rollout of the vaccine compares to that of other provinces. For months now, the numbers that have received most of our attention have been case counts and deaths, but the numbers in Michael’s daily dosage visuals are the ones we should increasingly be watching, in large part because, unlike the virus, the vaccine is something that our governments can completely control. Now if only the federal government south of our border can be completely in the control of those whom voters elected.

Jan. 7: North Dakota racing ahead on vaccination

An email from the head coach of NDSU’s track team landed in my inbox today announcing they’ve cleared the way for up to two family members of each athlete to attend the upcoming home meet. While my heart wants me to be in Fargo cheering for my son, my head knows I will have to make do watching the livestream on our family room sofa. But here’s the thing: it might soon be safer for me to watch track in North Dakota than it is to watch it from afar here in Manitoba. While North Dakota’s pandemic response left the state with the dubious distinction of having the worst COVID case counts per capita for much of the fall, it›s been pretty quick out of the starting blocks with vaccinations. According to the U.S. Centres for Disease Control, North Dakota is running third among all 50 states when it comes to getting the vaccine into the arms of its residents. Of the 43,950 doses delivered to North Dakota, 27,289 shots have been delivered, or 62 per cent of what›s available. Here in Manitoba, it’s almost as if we didn’t hear the starter’s pistol as only 6,328 jabs have been delivered of the 29,530 doses on hand — just 21.4 per cent. To be fair to Manitoba, North Dakota’s first doses of the vaccine arrived on Dec. 14, one day before the first batch landed in the province. But for a provincial government quick to trumpet its pandemic response — its metrics were far better than what was transpiring one hour south of the Manitoba Legislative Building — someone really needs to do some explaining, or at least, figure out what North Dakota is doing right and start doing it here. At next Saturday’s track meet, there will be banners urging the NDSU Bison to victory with the slogan “Roll Herd!” With herd immunity now the human race’s goal, those banners now have even greater meaning.

Jan. 8: A tough first week, all around

As a rule, I try to have the Friday night briefing sound an upbeat note as we head into the weekend. My thinking is that in the midst of a pandemic, a booster shot of positivity is the next best thing to a hit of Pfizer-BioNTech. But to be honest, I’m finding it hard to find something positive as this first full work week of 2021 comes to a close. Code red hasn’t ended, even though the case count trend line was at one point headed in the direction of an easing of restrictions. The hangover from illegal holiday gatherings is starting to hit as more than 355 recent cases involve 1,900 contacts. You can guess what that’s going to mean after a 14-day incubation period. The province’s positivity rate is up again, and I remain down at the glacial speed of vaccinations in the province. The one bit of good news for this beer league hockey player desperately missing the game is that the province has cleared the Jets to play at home. At least I’ll have something to watch on TV — because watching replays of the mob laying siege to the U.S. Capitol wasn’t going to do my mental health any good. I don’t think I headed into the New Year wearing rose-coloured glasses. I knew COVID-19 wasn’t going to fade just because we left 2020 behind. Even so, I’m surprised at the epiphany that came into focus on the Epiphany, of all days. Things appear to be getting worse. My glass might be half empty even though I was doing my best to keep it half-full. The light I thought I saw at the end of the tunnel doesn’t seem so bright. To echo the meme making the rounds, I’d like to cancel my subscription to 2021 after experiencing this seven-day trial. As soon as this intro is filed, I’ll be heading home from the office with a big serving of butter chicken ordered from the woman brave enough to keep her new catering business going despite the curve balls COVID-19 keeps throwing her way. Bringing home some comfort food helps my family, and helps her. I hope you can find some comfort, too, on this first weekend of renewed code-red restrictions.

Jan. 11: Ireland goes from great… to worst

Tonight’s pre-boarding announcement for your regularly scheduled COVID-19 briefing is not about the luck of the Irish. Rather, it’s a cautionary tale about how unlucky it can be when you take your chances with this virus, when you let down your guard, when you fool yourself into thinking that meeting down at the pub for a few pints of Guinness is a good way to celebrate Christmas. So let’s go to Ireland, which had the lowest coronavirus infection rate in the European Union in early December. Today, it has the world’s highest rate. Let me repeat that to help you fully appreciate what has happened in a matter of weeks since the country eased its lockdown restrictions. Heading into the Christmas week, Ireland was recording 10 new coronavirus cases per 100,000. Today, that rate is 132 per 100,000. That’s worse that the United States. Worse than the United Kingdom. Worse than the Czech Republic. Worse than anywhere else on the planet. Something else to mull over as you look at the Irish surge now reflected by a vertical line as any semblance of a curve is but a fond memory. On Dec. 11, there were but 313 new cases added to Ireland’s pandemic rolls. On Jan. 11, the new case count was 4,929. Bad pun alert: the problem with the virus, as the Irish are now learning the hard way, is that the cases keep Dublin. “I think we’ve run out of adjectives to describe how serious this is,” Irish health chief Paul Reid said in the Washington Post. Fortunately, Manitoba’s health chief had a much more upbeat tone Monday, in large part because the case counts are trending down and Manitoba has yet to see anything quite like the Irish Christmas holiday hangover. “Today’s numbers are encouraging,’’ Dr. Brent Roussin said. “We definitely want to see this trajectory continue.” Based on what we are seeing in Ireland, I’m going to bet that trajectory means there won’t be any pubs serving Guinness here anytime in the near future.

Jan. 12: Failing to learn from our past

There was a time, much earlier in the pandemic, when we were quick to show our appreciation for those on the front lines of the health-care system. There were the blue-light campaigns that illuminated our appreciation for all that doctors and nurses were doing. There were messages of thanks chalked on the streets, taped on windows or expressed with food and coffee delivered to hospitals. But at this point in the pandemic, maybe we need to step up our game. If we really care about those who have been putting themselves at risk to care for those with COVID-19, maybe we need to find a way to get the vaccinations moving a little faster so that everyone is a little safer. Maybe we need to ensure health-care workers aren’t forced to roll up their arms on their own time at the super-site immunization clinics. If we can’t or won’t deliver the vaccines where they work, maybe we need to compensate them for the after-hours effort to get the protection they deserve. Or maybe we need to look in the rear-view mirror to the lessons learned during the H1N1 pandemic of 2009 that delivered the vaccine to 451,000 Manitobans — 37 per cent of the population. At that time, Manitoba’s mass immunization plan had been developed and tested through staged exercises so that 200,000 vaccinations could be delivered on a weekly basis. Here’s an important point of reference: as of Friday, the two COVID vaccines will have been in the province for a month. As of the last report from the province, only 10,353 doses have been administered. A 2010 provincial review of Manitoba’s H1N1 response concluded its «plans worked well for the H1N1 flu and the experience will help improve plans for future emergency situations.» Granted, H1N1 was a different pandemic than COVID-19, and the vaccines deployed in 2009 don’t have the same challenges as the two we are now counting upon to save lives. However, if there ever is a provincial review of Manitoba’s response to COVID-19, I’m willing to bet the conclusion isn’t going to be near as favourable as the one that studied the deadly H1N1 crisis. In the meantime, it might be best if the super-site immunization clinics stocked the waiting areas with back copies of Reader’s Digest. Leaving a few copies of the provincial review of Manitoba’s H1N1 response for nurses and doctors to thumb through might hurt more than the jab. Jan. 13: Just one more chip…

On balance, I’m pretty pleased with the way I’ve endured livin’ la vida locadown. The hockey void has been filled with lots of outdoor runs. The investment in the basement gym is paying dividends. I’ve stepped up my cooking game. And if code red restrictions go on much longer, the new app on the iPhone will have me progressing beyond the right-hand stage of my introductory piano lessons. But the lockdown has exposed one of my failings — a sometimes insatiable lust for chips. For much of the pandemic, I’ve managed to stay on the wagon, to resist the savoury siren song coming from that Pringle’s tube or Old Dutch bag. Alas, the fingerprints caked in orange flavouring dust along with the incriminating deep-fried shards strewn on the carpet near my favourite chair have forced me to confess I have a problem. My name is Paul Samyn and I am a chip-a-holic. I can’t blame COVID-19 for the time I’ve been spending with Doritos, Lay’s or — on those guilt-inducing binges — ripple chips and dip. If I’m honest, chips have always been my weak spot. Even as a child, I’d always take sour cream and onion over anything sweet. But lately, there have been too many nights where it has been impossible to social distance from the chips that, wisely, are still deemed essential items. Fortunately, I am not alone, especially during the pandemic. In today’s New York Times, Sam Anderson invited me and anyone else to stress-eat some chips together. “For me, a bag of chips is a way to defeat time,’’ Anderson writes. “It brings temporary infinity: a feeling that it will never end. A chip. A chip. A chip. Another chip. The chips come like ocean waves, like human breaths, serial but unique, each part of a huge eternal rhythm but also its own precious discovery.” As I digested Anderson’s praise for chips, his prose rivalled the hit experienced when each crunch lands on my tastebuds. Even better, he recognized the virtue the much-maligned chip delivers during these extraordinary times. “A pandemic, it turns out, produces a curious paradox: it not only creates a shrieking worldwide drama of existential dread — it also puts relentless pressure on the most mundane aspects of our everyday lives. “For nearly a year now, many of us have been locked in a controlled environment, a closed lab of selfhood: the Quarantine Institute of Applied Subjectivity. Our homes have become biodomes designed to study the fragile ecosystems of Us. All our neu- roses and addictions and habits are under the microscope. Willpower, productivity, resilience, despair. We have turned into scientists of ourselves. And so I watch myself eating chips.” My own closed lab of selfhood will be conducting another experiment tomorrow night that will involve watching the Jets play their first home game while watching myself eat chips. Please don’t judge me. I have to do something to pass the time until my date with the vaccine. One pandemic is one too many; one more chip is never enough.

Jan. 14: On the spot with Larry Kusch

In my never-ending quest to come up with something fresh for this nightly bulletin — and since I already resorted to praising potato chips as a pandemic coping mechanism — it’s time for something completely different. Tonight, we are going to bring Larry Kusch into the fold for a discussion on what it’s been like covering the endless COVID-19 briefings. As one of the senior members of the Manitoba Legislative Press Gallery, Lar- ry has frequently been our point man on the intersection between politics and the pandemic. Here’s our conversation: PAUL: You›ve remained at our legislative bureau throughout COVID, which means you›ve seen more than your share of pandemic press conferences. What changes have you noticed in terms of the amount of information provided and the tone from everyone from the politicians to Dr. Brent Roussin? LARRY: I think generally the media — and therefore the public — have been given information on a need-to-know basis. That›s been the case from the beginning of the pandemic, and it›s not Larry Kusch is a senior member of the Manitoba changed. For instance, unlike other Legislative Press Gallery provinces, Manitoba has generally not been willing to share projections about case numbers and/or deaths, except, occasionally, after the fact. Until yesterday, we were unsuccessful in getting any kind of solid information about the province›s vaccine rollout. We›ve also had trouble obtaining information about how the virus has affected particular groups in society. Earlier this year, the government resisted providing reporters with regional COVID-19 numbers for the longest time. PAUL: For months now, reporters have been unable to be present in the press theatre for these briefings. What impact does that have in the ability to ask questions and get answers? LARRY: It is a great handicap for journalists. We are generally limited to two questions on the telephone, which makes it much easier for a skilled politician like Brian Pallister to deflect a tough line of questioning. In the press theatre, it’s a free- for-all, but reporters will generally not interrupt a colleague who needs to ask five or six pointed questions in a row to get a straight answer. Also, since we are restricted to just a couple of questions each, reporters are less likely to pick up on a line of questioning initiated by someone else, especially since their assignment editors or news directors may have directed them to ask a particular question. In-person press conferences and scrums are so much more efficient than these moderated events the public witnesses online. In the press theatre, we can ask many more questions in the same amount of time. In person, we can quickly pose a followup question to ensure we fully understand a response. It’s much tougher to do that when it will mean burning your last question. PAUL: How much do you think politics is influencing the answers given about everything from vaccine distribution to lockdown restrictions to enforcement of public health orders? LARRY: I think there›s been an element of politics in all the decisions that have been taken, and I don›t really mean partisan politics when I say that. It›s more a question of tailoring orders, to some extent, on what the public will accept at a particular point in time. The delay in requiring mask use in Manitoba, I think, was somewhat of a political calculation. The powers-that-be wanted to make sure the public was on board first. As it turned out, a large segment of the public was way ahead of the decision-makers on that issue. PAUL: At various points, Premier Brian Pallister has taken swipes at the Free Press for our coverage of the pandemic. What is it like to be on the receiving end of those responses? LARRY: It doesn›t bother me at all. I smile to myself and carry on. One thing I do know — and appreciate — is that the premier is a faithful reader of the Free Press.

Jan. 15: Province falling short on vaccinations

The hand is not far from the arm. Unless we are talking about the distance between having the vaccine in hand and the arms desperately waiting for the shot. In that case, bridging the distance as fast as possible can be the difference between life and death. If you think I am exaggerating, let’s look at the Pallister government’s pledge issued Jan. 6 as part of a bold 28-day campaign to vaccinate all personal care home residents in Manitoba. That campaign began on Monday aiming to immunize an estimated 1,157 residents at seven homes in the first week. As of today, only 281 residents have been immunized. Even with vaccinations scheduled over the weekend, the province will fall far short of its initial target. Meanwhile, 26 more deaths linked to personal care homes have been announced since Premier Brian Pallister made his commitment to the province’s most vulnerable citizens. At the current pace, we risk having far fewer residents to immunize. As always, questions from reporters to both the premier and his chief public health officer led to answers that everything is going smoothly and there is no need to worry. If only. Sadly, the vexing pace of vaccinations appears to have spread throughout Canada, the country that has secured more vaccine doses than anyone else. The Washington Post notes that Canada›s vaccination pace lags well behind that of the United States, as only 1.2 per cent of the Canadian population has received at least one dose. South of the border, three times as many doses have been administered per capita. “The vaccine rollout across our country has lacked speed,” Nathan Stall, a geriatri- cian at the Sinai Health System in Toronto, told the Washington Post. “It has lacked urgency. It has lacked transparency. And it has started to deviate from some of the priority populations… who need it most.” I’m fortunate my aging parents are still in their own St. James bungalow. Their good fortune means they aren’t the ones who need the vaccine the most, who need it now. But where’s the urgency and transparency for those with loved ones in personal care homes? News that only a few hundred doses have been administered to date offers little in the way of comfort.

Jan. 18: Time for a shot in the arm

Dr. Anthony Fauci was quick to roll up his sleeve in December to give the COVID-19 vaccine a boost of confidence by getting his shot. We know Queen Elizabeth got hers. Even Pope Francis gave his blessing to the vaccine when he submitted to a jab last week. So when do Dr. Brent Roussin and Premier Brian Pallister get their shots? More importantly, will they be getting their shots in public so the simple act of offering their deltoids to the needle also serves as a shot in the arm for the province’s vaccine program? This isn’t an argument for jumping the queue. Rather, it’s about the need to demonstrate leadership on a critical part of the province’s pandemic response that we all need to work if we are ever going to move past this virus. Earlier in the pandemic, there was confusion about masks. Should we wear one? Why are experts saying they don’t work? Why are the same experts changing their minds? Why are experts now wearing masks? And when are we going to require everyone to wear one? We can’t afford to have a repeat of the mask mess when it comes to getting needles into as many arms as possible. We already know there will be pushback from those in the anti-vax crowd. As Dr. Joss Reimer, the medical lead of Manitoba’s vaccination task force, revealed in today’s briefing, there are already personal home care residents who declined the shot that could save their lives. The less uncertainty surrounding the vaccine, the faster we get to herd immunity. So let’s start the critical sales job now in the early stages of the vaccine rollout by having Roussin and Pallister roll up their sleeves. They did it to push the flu vaccine. They need to do likewise with this vaccine to demonstrate that it’s safe, that it’s effective and that they have faith in it. And if they want to argue that others are more deserving now for these first doses, then make that point — even though the premier is a senior with asthma and Roussin continues to put himself at risk by seeing patients. But having made that point, let us know when they will be on the same stage, with the same vaccine getting the shots they need all of us to take when it’s our turn.

Jan. 19: Show us the model

After nearly three months of code-red restrictions, I wonder if we’ve become immune to the way we were. We have those misty watercolour memories of the time before COVID. The scattered pictures of the smiles left behind when visiting dear friends. The smiles we gave to one another over dinner at a favourite restaurant. The hugs shared when it was all so simple then. And now that we have a chance to do it all over again, would we, should we? With apologies to Barbra Streisand, tonight’s briefing is a riff on the province’s plans to turn back the pages of its pandemic songbook to a slightly less restrictive refrain. But the overture to the easing of the public health orders from Dr. Brent Roussin did little to assure Manitobans there›s science to back up these tentative moves. “We think that this is a prudent approach, a very cautious approach and we will continue to loosen things as long as our numbers allow us to,” the province’s chief public health officer said at today’s briefing. That’s all well and fine, but what would be even better is to show us the model that backs up this prudent and cautious approach. As we’ve seen all too often in the past, the ever-cautious doctor doesn’t publicly share the basis for his diagnosis. And as I’ve said before in this space, that’s a mistake because the public deserves that information. So let’s look at one such forecast. The latest figures from the Institute for Health Met- rics and Evaluation show the trajectory Manitoba is on can indeed handle a loosening of restrictions. Yes, there will be more deaths, just as there will be more positive cases, but the models from the University of Washington›s COVID tracking project reveal no discernible difference in the daily death toll from an easing of restrictions. To wit: Roussin’s proposal for a 21-day easing of restrictions to begin Saturday includes a two-week incubation period and then some additional time to make assessments. According to the independent IHME forecast, Manitoba’s downward trend in daily deaths from COVID will continue at the same pace with or without an easing of restrictions. The forecast for Feb. 12 is 4.65 deaths under existing restrictions. But with restrictions easing, the daily death projection is only 4.67 on that date, which would mark the end of the first three weeks of loosened restrictions. If this counts as good news, we are apparently at the point where the trendline for deaths under current restrictions and the trendline for deaths along an easing of restrictions mirror each other all the way through February and March. I don’t want to make light of the fact many more Manitobans are going to lose their lives before we are able to move past COVID. For the record, 11 more deaths were announced as Roussin shared news of the shape of the likely loosening of restrictions. But how are we ever going to get back to the way we were if the province won’t trust us with the models that show us where we are today and where we can be in the months ahead if we follow the doctor’s new orders?

Jan. 20: A welcome change in the U.S.

When we launched this nightly briefing around the Ides of March, the pandemic — not politics — was our focus. But in short order, we realized the pandemic had become politicized, so political commentary became a recurring theme in the opening remarks to our COVID-19 roundup. On the day Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. was sworn in as the 46th U.S. president, I›m again returning to the political well, although I hope it won›t be seen as partisan, regardless of your political stripe. What took place this morning on the steps of the U.S. Capitol, two weeks after an attempted insurrection, might be the most significant step forward in the global fight against the pandemic beyond the approval of the vaccines now deployed in the race against the virus. We’ve gone from a superspreader in the White House to a healer. Instead of a com- mander-in-chief who weaponized masks in his misguided cultural war, there is a head of state not afraid to wear one and encourage others to do so. Where once denial or injections of disinfectant were the daily prescriptions from the variant’s bully pulpit, there is now someone not afraid to deal with the hard truths of this deadly virus by trusting in science. “Look, you all know, we’ve been through so much in this nation,’’ Biden said in his inaugural address. “In my first act as president, I’d like to ask you to join me in a moment of silent prayer to remember all those who we lost in this past year to the pandemic, those 400,000 fellow Americans moms, dads, husbands, wives, sons, daughters, friends, neighbours and co-workers. We’ll honour them by becoming the people and the nation we know we can and should be.” At various points in the pandemic, some readers of this newsletter have taken me to task for what they said was my obsession with how COVID-19 was ravaging the United States. They complained that all I wanted to do was take cheap shots at Donald Trump. One even sent me a bright red shirt emblazoned with the message “Keep Calm America and Trump on” accompanied with a rant that I was overstating the threat of COVID-19 and biased against the “greatest modern-day president and true leader the U.S.A. has ever had.” But those critiques ignored the reality of this virus that has now killed more than 400,000 Americans. My concern about what was happening south of the 49th parallel was motivated by the fact COVID-19 doesn’t give a damn about blue states or red states and respects no international borders. What happens on the front lines of the U.S. war on COVID-19 has ramifications far beyond its 50 states. Despite Trump’s nativist bent, the U.S. still plays a role on the global stage, especially in the midst of a global pandemic. Would we have had anti-mask rallies everywhere from Steinbach to London if Trump were not providing some of the oxygen that fuelled those protests in defiance of public health orders? COVID-19 won’t simply disappear because Biden is now the president. Nor will the virus become any less of a foe because there is a new man in charge of the world’s biggest superpower. But the long road ahead of the United States, and by extension the rest of us, just became a little easier to navigate, a little smoother. The light at the end of the pandemic tunnel we’ve all been longing for is suddenly a little brighter.

Jan. 21: Unexpected news

I’ve been unexpectedly called away tonight, so I’m afraid you’ll have to go without my usual musings. Let’s get right to the latest updates.

Jan. 22: Remembering Brian George Gardiner Around the time I was about to turn my attention to writing the intro to Thursday’s briefing, my phone rang with the call from England I’d been dreading since my father-in-law tested positive for COVID-19. The timeline of his viral story — our viral story — starts with a nagging cough at a testing centre on Boxing Day. Confirmation of a positive test came on Dec. 30 as a new variant raged across England. A home visit from the doctor on Jan. 15 to check on his breathing. A call to paramedics on Tuesday. And then on the 21st day of the 21st year of the 21st century, alone in a hospital room, unable to see family gathered outside, he slipped away. Another statistic in England’s grim tally of more than 90,000 COVID-linked deaths. Brian George Gardiner was many things in his 88 years of life. A boy from England’s West Country, he was a rugby player, avid gardener, paleontologist, president of the Linnean Society of London and even, for a brief time, a resident of Canada while doing his post-doctoral work at the University of Alberta. More importantly, he was a husband to Elizabeth for 59 years, a father to twin girls and a son, and a grandfather to seven. Today he is being mourned by those fortunate to have known and loved him. In the tomorrows to come, may the memories shared soothe the pain of his passing. I mention the death of my father-in-law to explain why last night’s briefing was missing my usual intro, but also to reflect on what this global pandemic has done to newsrooms everywhere. As reporters, we are taught the importance of objectivity, the need to maintain distance in order to get as close as we can to the truth. But the theoretical view from nowhere is impossible when the virus is everywhere. There is no way to socially distance our way through covering a pandemic because the story of COVID-19 is also our story. We are living it as we write it. Our lives and our livelihoods have been on the line since it turned everyone’s world upside down. This newsroom hasn’t been immune from the darkness COVID delivers. No newsroom has immunity. That’s why talk of fake news surrounding COVID-19 has been so infuriating. That’s why those in power taking shots at the questions we ask, the accountability we seek, the headlines the public deserves, has been so frustrating. I wish to God our newsroom hadn’t been forced to focus almost everything we have on one story for the past 10 months. I pray our questions, our skepticism, our digging and our reporting will make a difference, will somehow help to speed the flattening of the curve so that as few families as possible have to go through what ours is now experiencing.

Jan. 25: Letting it all out

Over the past few days, there have been plenty of tears and hugs in our household. That’s what happens when you are dealing with the loss of a beloved family member overseas from COVID-19. You cry. You hug. Rinse and repeat. With only one university psychology course on my resumé, I’m no expert in navigating the grieving process, but I’ve thought a lot about tears and the power of hugs in the last 48 hours, especially as it relates to dealing with loss in the midst of a pandemic. I’ve learned there are three kinds of tears secreted from the lacrimal gland, located just above the eye. The first two, basal and reflexive tears, are designed to keep your eyes healthy via lubrication or ridding of harmful irritants. The tears expelled in an emotional state are psychic tears. Since COVID hit, this never-ending emotional state seems designed for psychic tears. And the tears that have flowed, whether brought on by a death linked to the virus or another pandemic-induced pain, might have actually helped, especially if you cry around those able to support you. “Crying and opening up really is a social cue to show vulnerability and to show that something’s not right in a way that can’t be expressed with words,” Gauri Khurana, a New York psychiatrist, told the Washington Post. In our home, tears tend to lead to hugs, which gets at the importance of human touch when living our lives with two metres of separation. In a piece I shared with my wife from the Guardian, we were struck by the fact the need for touch exists below the horizon of consciousness and that many of our core needs can›t be done without it. In other words, we are hard-wired to need touch, especially during high stress states such as a pandemic. “Lots of studies support the theory that touch gives the brain a signal that it can del- egate its resources for coping because someone else is there to bear the brunt. This relaxes the body, going some way to restoring the stress budget, if you like,” says Dr Katerina Fotopoulou. Beyond the tears and hugs that helped us through this first weekend, we were also touched by the notes from readers to this newsletter after I shared our news of my father-in-law’s passing in England. The healing power of your words, those deeply personal thoughts and prayers, provided much comfort as I read them aloud to my wife. We made sure to then share them with family in England as part of our COVID rinse-and-repeat cycle of tears and hugs. Thank you!

Jan. 26: Manitobans need answers on vaccines

In the past, we’ve seen campaigns from Manitoba Health about the importance of getting a flu shot. There have been public reminders to reduce the risk of West Nile virus by applying mosquito repellent. We’ve been warned to take steps to protect ourselves from ticks that spread Lyme disease. Even this winter, Manitoba Health sent out alerts in advance of cold weather, reminding us to bundle up and to check the forecast before venturing outside. But where’s the public education campaign to ensure Manitobans are ready and willing to roll up their sleeves for the vaccine that holds the power to end this pandemic? Why haven’t we seen a strategy to get the buy-in necessary for herd immunity? Where’s the messaging to counter the misinformation already out there that will make injection sites a no-go zone for some? Questions that all deserve answers. Questions that should have been addressed far earlier given the vaccine landed in our province 40 days ago. Questions that I can’t believe I am having to raise now. So is it any wonder our latest poll found only 72 per cent of Manitobans want to be vaccinated at first opportunity? Despite months of code-red restrictions, an unrelenting death toll in personal care homes and COVID-19 case counts raging across the North, a quarter of those surveyed said they would pass on getting the shot that could save their life and the lives of others. From a public health standpoint, this would seem to be a problem. In the past, we’ve seen how those problems can spread. To wit: the anti-mask rallies in the Steinbach area even as the community’s test positivity rates went through the roof. If those who openly defied public-health orders in the past are able to spread doubt about the value of the vaccine, the virus will win. Again. On the other hand, if the province’s vaccination plan only banks on getting shots to about 70 per cent of Manitobans by the end of year, maybe there’s really nothing much to worry about. Perhaps having a quarter of the population in the anti-vax camp is a problem Manitoba Health will deal with next year. In the meantime, let’s take comfort that in the midst of a pandemic Manitoba Health has ensured we know how to protect ourselves from mosquitoes, ticks, and above all else, the importance of staying warm on a frigid January night.

Jan. 27: Buyer’s remorse

In the race against the virus, you might have thought coming up with the vaccine would be the crucial breakthrough. Based on the headlines of late about shortages of the immunizing doses here, there and everywhere, we may need to rethink things. I get that warp speed development involving messenger RNA to deliver salvation in a syringe is years beyond my elementary school science fair project. But perhaps the even bigger hurdle involves the DNA of supply chains so Pfizer, Moderna et al. can keep up production at the pace needed globally. Fortunately, Oklahoma is sitting on a $2-million stockpile of hydroxychloroquine, the malaria treatment a former U.S. president trumpeted as a miracle cure for COVID-19. The headlines today from the Sooner State are all about the 1.2 million hydroxychloroquine pills purchased in the early days of the pandemic that are up for sale. In case you were socially distancing yourself from news from Oklahoma, Gov. Kevin Stitt was quick to jump on the hydroxychloroquine bandwagon as a “proactive” move to “protect” Oklahomans. A former state health official later chalked up that purchase on the “fog of war.” The fog has since cleared. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration warns hydroxychloroquine is not a safe or effective treatment for COVID-19. And if malaria somehow trumps your worries about the coronavirus, then there’s a deal potentially waiting for you in Oklahoma. From my standpoint, there doesn’t appear to be any supply chain issues surrounding the stockpile. But see if you can get the Republican governor to sweeten the deal by throwing in a few extra crates of Lysol.

Jan. 28: Pandemic time

Early in the pandemic, NPR’s Bob Garfield took the time to confess how untethered he had become because of COVID-19’s ability to stop time, to play havoc with the present, to create uncertainty about the future. He talked about how not knowing what the passage of time would yield left him un- moored, spinning in space as if his internal gyroscope was on the fritz. “I cannot be alone in this, because time isn’t just a metric, it’s a gravity that keeps us tethered to the world by anticipating future seconds and minutes and days,’’ said Garfield, the co-host of On the Media. “We’re able to feel traction and trajectory, but without those hidden comforts of time comes this vertigo, this loss of chronological bearings.” I don’t know about you, but Garfield is far from alone as processing the pandemic puts a strain on the brain. Routines are no longer the same. Temporal touchstones such as birthdays, graduations and anniversaries lose meaning when they come and go without any real celebration. Days merge. Weeks drag on. Months no longer matter. “Quarantine leads to the interruption of normal activities,” researchers from the University of Laval wrote this past fall in an article titled “Pandemic, Quarantine and Psychological Time.” “What was interrupted is indeed a series of landmarks in the regular citizen’s schedule. In addition to losing a schedule at work to remind us which day we are, there were no more outings to the theater on Thursday or to the cinema on Friday, or dinner with friends or family on Saturday or Sunday, or services at the church, or a favourite program or professional sports game on TV on a weekday. Slowly, the days have lost their identities, their specific flavour, and the name of the days has lost some of its significance. With the loss of these landmarks in the week, or in the month, people were exposed to losing their motivation.” Fortunately, part of my pandemic response involved springing for a new smartwatch so that even when passing time during the lockdown, I would be tracking it in minute detail. My runs, my heart rate, my stress levels, my sleep patterns are all now part of the onboard monitor on my left wrist. I don’t think I was ever in danger of losing my orientation during code red. Still, it’s remarkable how much motivation my new watch has provided during a lockdown that could have easily been treated as an ongoing timeout. I’m not saying my watch told me it was time to hit the rink last night even as it flashed that the temperature awaiting me outside was a crisp -22 C. But after lacing up my skates on a makeshift bench by the parking lot, I made sure to push the start button to record each and every stride on the fresh sheet of ice that was mine for the taking. It took a while for the numbness in my fingers to fade, but the deep freeze social distanced everyone else away from the rink so it was just me, two nets and my bag of pucks trying to make up for the fact my beer-league hockey season remains on hold. When it’s brutally cold like it was Wednesday night, the sounds from the rink are amplified. The ping of puck on post. The crunch of blade carving ice. The crack of stick blade meeting vulcanized rubber. How can sounds so loud be so soothing? The smartwatch stats from my solo skate show a combination of end-to-end rushes, breakouts, dekes and shots from all angles covered four kilometres of ice. My top speed was 30.1 km/h — sadly nowhere near the 44.2 km/h Connor McDavid hits on a breakaway. In other words, I have a lot more work to do at the ODR. But there’s a limit to what my watch can track. It doesn’t know what it feels like to be lucky enough to have a full sheet of ice all to yourself. It can’t record what it means to experience it beneath a full moon on a clear night when the air is still. Time was standing still for me. And on that one night in a long pandemic, that was more than all right.

Jan. 29: Pallister and professionalism

The virus doesn’t give a damn about your political leanings. It doesn’t care if you read the Free Press. It infects whoever it can, whenever and wherever it can. There’s no immunity for Tories, New Democrats, Liberals or Greens. While I’d like to think the Free Press provides information to help protect yourself, our staff and far too many of our readers have all become COVID casualties. And yet, Manitoba’s premier seems determined to frame the province’s pandemic response as one that must also do battle with this paper. In recent weeks, you’d almost wonder whether Brian Pallister is more worried about Free Press headlines than troubling trendlines surrounding vaccinations and viral-linked fatalities. The most recent example came Thursday when Free Press reporter Larry Kus- ch asked Pallister a question about the WRHA›s chairman ignoring public-health pleadings to stay home so he could fly south. “Is this a question of folks in high places being allowed to travel with impunity if they have the right connections in government?” Larry asked. Pallister’s response had nothing to do with the Arizona area code of Wayne McWhirter and everything to do with another scatter-gun attack on the Free Press. Pallister complained the paper has been too negative, too critical. He whined there had been too many articles about his trips to Ottawa and his family’s travels to Costa Rica. He then finished with this exclamation point: “I have to ask myself is that professional journalism, Larry. I have to ask myself that question. And I think the answer to that question, honestly, is no it is not. Thank you.” I could talk about the premier choosing to question Larry’s professionalism in a forum where he never had to come face-to-face with the reporter he was disparag- ing. I could also talk about how Pallister had no problems with Larry’s journalism or professionalism when his reporting exposed the coup within Greg Selinger’s cabinet, a string of exclusives that saw the NDP’s fortunes plummet while the Tories’ soared. Instead, I will talk about what Pallister said in a different forum broadcast on the very same day he was taking a personal shot at Larry. As part of Bell Let’s Talk Day, the premier was standing tall in his office as he talked about the importance of mental health. “The COVID-19 pandemic is causing stress and anxiety for all of us,’’ began Pallister. I’m presuming “the all of us” includes journalists, so the next sentence should apply to Larry as much as everyone else working and living in Manitoba: “It’s important for us to care for one another, to be kind and respectful.’’ At some point, voters may get the chance to decide whether Pallister is a man of his word, a premier who is kind and respectful, a leader who made the right decisions when the province faced a deadly crisis. But until that time, Larry and the rest of his colleagues at the Free Press have a job to do — all the more important because of the pandemic. So we will focus on ongoing deaths at nursing homes because their families deserve the truth, not headlines that earn the approval of the premier. We will scrutinize the pace of vaccinations, just as we dug into problems with testing and breakdowns in contact-tracing. We will find out when the advice of doctors is being ignored, when nurses are being put in harm’s way, when teachers are left in the dark about viral risks in their schools. And when those in the premier’s orbit travel with impunity while everyone else is told to stay home, we will ask questions — over and over again. Because that’s what professional journalists do. Monday, Feb. 1, 2021: Pandemic milestones

My mother-in-law in the mother country got her COVID-19 vaccination this morning. An NHS district nurse made a house call, got her to roll up her sleeve, and just like that, a shot of AstraZeneca’s vaccine was in her arm. “It was fast and it was efficient,” she beamed in the FaceTime call that woke us at 5:30 a.m. Good news like that rightly assumes everyone is on Greenwich Mean Time. I mention the viral protection now coursing through my mother-in-law’s body as both England and Manitoba marked pandemic milestones, announcing eligible care home residents had all been offered the vaccine. In England’s case, the next milestone will come on Feb. 15 as all of those over 70 are to be vaccinated. Here in Manitoba, the target for people over age 70 is not so bold. The projected vaccination timeline released by the province last week states that everyone between the ages of 70 and 79 who wants the vaccine will receive it between March 15 and the end of May in both high-supply and low-supply scenarios. I checked the province’s vaccine calculator to see when my mother, who, like my mother-in-law, is in her early 80s, can expect to get her jab. Apparently, there are 70,511 people ahead of her in the queue. It’s no secret Canada’s vaccine rollout has been problematic, and those problems are manifesting themselves in different ways from province to province. For those of you scoring at home, Canada has been administering .06 doses per 100 people. By comparison, the United Kingdom is at .58 per 100. But dig a little deeper into Manitoba’s milestone today and there is cause for worry about what we’ve actually achieved and what it means for everyone else waiting up- stream for the vaccine. As of Jan. 31, the province said an estimated 8,112 eligible and consenting residents in every personal care home had received their first dose. The only problem with that boast is the province said before Christmas that 15,000 residents were eligible for the first round of vaccinations. On Jan. 6, that target was revised downward to 9,834 residents. The first target suggests slightly more than half of the province’s most vulnerable now have their first dose. The revised Jan. 6 target shows a much better vaccination rate within personal care homes of 82 per cent. Regardless of the difference, vaccinating those in personal care homes offers a degree of efficiency that won’t be there once you step outside institutional settings and start dealing with the next round of the province’s senior citizens, many of whom can’t drive and have been told for months to stay home in order to stay safe. How are they going to be contacted to be informed about their vaccination appoint- ment? If my aging parents are any indication, texting or emailing vaccination appoint- ment times won’t work. How far are they expected to travel to get to vaccination centres? Who takes them? How long do we expect those who are amongst our frailest to wait in some queue? At some point, those questions might be answered here in Manitoba, but in England, one solution already in place involved a district nurse armed with a syringe making house calls to seniors. By the end of her shift, 11 more aging Brits had the vaccine they desperately need. By the end of her shift, England was that much further along the road to immunity than Canada or Manitoba.

Feb. 2: It’s Groundhog Day, again

The morning dawned under a cloudy sky. In theory, that meant there would be no shadow for the groundhogs to see. In theory, that means our winter of discontent will soon end. But what about the viral shadow we’ve all been living under for months that has made every day a Groundhog Day? As with Bill Murray’s self-centred TV weatherman in the 1993 comedy, Manitobans’ alarm clocks in the pandemic keep waking us up to more of the same, day after day after day. The endless time loop of lockdowns, restrictions, disappointment and deaths has left us all a little stir-crazy. For the record, I’ve never put much stock in the prognosticating power of rodents. But just for fun — and at this point, who doesn’t need something to make them smile — what if we were to turn to Murray’s character for a pandemic forecast for our province? My guess is that character, Phil Connors, might draw on his experience with models and numbers to point out that brighter days are ahead. He’d note case counts are trending downward and that today marked the lowest number of positive tests since Octo- ber. He’d point to a fancy graph showing more good news in the steady decline in test positivity rates. He might even extrapolate at what improvements in our ICU numbers will mean later this month. And given the nature of TV meteorologists to leave us with a smile, he’d make sure to find something to lift our spirits from the fatigue-inducing monotony of our viral experience. I’m drawing here on Bill Murray’s brilliant comic performance partly because I love the movie, but also because I worry the pandemic has clouded our ability to recognize anything that hints at the return of sunny days. Much like Phil’s journey in Groundhog Day, our processing of the pandemic has moved from denial to anger to bargaining and now to depression. The only step left for us now in Elisabeth Kübler-Ross’s framework is acceptance. But are we ready to accept that things will one day be better? Certainly, the vaccines going into more and more arms every day suggests that we are closer to turning the corner than we were when code red began in the fall. Pfizer and Moderna won’t replace what was lost but they can help get us to the new reality of whatever is awaiting us on the other side of this pandemic. In Groundhog Day, the time loop is finally broken as Phil moves forward on Feb. 3 with the object of his affection, Rita. “Today is tomorrow — it happened,” Phil says to Rita as a new day finally dawns in the movie’s last scene. I’m pretty sure I won’t wake up tomorrow morning next to Andie MacDowell, but if I do, the next newsletter I write is going to involve a lot of explaining to my dear wife.

Feb. 3: What’s Next

At various points during the pandemic, in our newsroom meetings we mused about what might come next. When will we get enough testing centres? Will schools reopen? When will the vaccine get here? And when will this all end? While COVID-19 has long passed its best-before date, we still don’t know when it will end. But now that we can at least see a light at the end of the viral tunnel, the question of what’s actually next is one we should start answering now. So let me introduce you to Jen Zoratti and the latest edition to our suite of newsletters we are calling… drumroll, please… Next. In the hands of Jen, this new weekly newsletter will focus on the post-pandemic light we can begin envisioning. “Let’s examine the lessons learned from a year that forced many people to slow down and take stock. Let’s talk about what has changed, what hasn’t changed, and what you hope will change,” Jen writes in the debut edition of Next, planned to hit inboxes Thurs- day. “I want you to be active participants in this little newsletter experiment, so please, email me! Tell me: what do you want to read about? What are your hopes for what’s next?” If you would like to ensure Next lands in your inbox, you can sign up for it here. In the meantime, I’ve got a two other housekeeping matters to share with you. The first is to ensure all Free Press subscribers are aware they›re eligible for a digital news subscription tax credit. The new measure means supporting our journalism just became more affordable. You can find out more about it here. The second is to encourage anyone reading this free newsletter who isn’t yet a subscriber to consider joining our growing paid audience. Producing this newsletter filled with our ongoing COVID-19 coverage takes a considerable amount of time and resources, so if you like what you read and value independent journalism you can trust, please consider subscribing.

Feb. 4: Learning from West Virginia

I’ve never met the governor of West Virginia and couldn’t pick him out of a lineup if my life depended on it. But Jim Justice’s state is among the best at rolling out the vaccine, so maybe we should listen to what he has to say about delivering salvation in a syringe. “If you want to know how many cows are in a field, just count the egg-sucking cows,” the Republican governor told the Washington Post. “Don’t count the legs and divide by four.” What Justice is getting at with his turn of phrase is a vaccination strategy that’s working because it keeps things as simple and straight-forward as possible. And by not further complicating an already complex public health challenge, West Virginia has earned national praise and the attention of the White House with its impressive record of already administering 199,458 doses. That means 11.1 per cent of its population has the protection from one shot, while 4.4 per cent are fully vaccinated. “People think we’re the poorest or most backward or whatever it may be, but West Vir- ginia has become the diamond in the rough,” Justice said in an interview. I don’t know how the Manitoba government counts cows in fields, but I sure hope it doesn’t involve dividing the number of legs by four. What I do know is that Premier Brian Pallister is keeping a close eye on the math surrounding Ottawa’s vaccine shipments to the provinces. He knows Manitoba needs more doses. He knows Ottawa isn’t keeping up with its initial delivery promises. He knows the value of scoring a few political points on the federal Liberals as Canada’s overall vaccination performance falls even further in international rankings. “We could vaccinate everyone in the next 10 weeks if we had the vaccines, but we don’t,” Pallister said today. Manitoba has boldly promised to deliver 20,000 shots per day from April to June 30. At the moment, that’s a pretty big jump given that Manitoba has only managed 44,051 doses in just under two months. But between now and April, there’s plenty of time for the province to fine-tune its vaccination strategy by having Pallister give Gov. Justice a call. After all, West Virgin- ia, with a population of 1.8 million, is only slightly larger than that of Manitoba. Like Manitoba, it faces similar challenges of poverty in rural areas. Like Manitoba, it had to grapple with shortages of the vaccine. Like Manitoba, it got its hands on the vaccine at the same time. Better still, Manitoba’s premier is also fond of folksy turns of phrase from his days growing up on the farm. And I’d love to hear Pallister and Justice talk about the best way to count cows and deliver the vaccine.

Feb. 5: The kids are all right

In this day and age, when no one seems to write letters anymore, the envelope that landed on my desk Friday morning was, by its very nature, newsworthy. Inside, was a carefully printed note with a sense of timing that couldn’t possibly have been better. “My name is Charlie, I am a Grade 6 student at Brock Corydon School,” began the letter decorated with a pencil-shaded border. Charlie went on to talk about the special project in Mrs. Pereles’ class to spread some positivity throughout Winnipeg, given the tough times facing everyone in the city. “Each of us decided to write a personal letter of gratitude to someone who has been helping our city during the pandemic. I chose you because you are helping lots of Win- nipeggers and your positivity articles are giving light in dark times.” I’m going to pause here for a second as there are tears in my eyes as I type out the words Charlie sent me. Deep breath. Now onward. “People read your writing and it gives them a burst of hope.” Actually, Charlie, you are the one giving a burst of hope. At various points in the pandemic, I’ve worried about the impact the lockdowns, the remote learning and the viral fears have had on kids in schools such as Brock Corydon. I recall how special my Grade 6 year was. How simple and safe everything seemed at Strathmillan School. How important the lessons learned then were as I eventually pursued a career in journalism.

But Charlie’s well-crafted letter, in printing far better than mine was, eased my worries. The spelling was correct. The punctuation was where it needed to be. All was good on the grammar front, too. The cherry on top was the old-school treatment from an elementary school student. The letter was neatly folded before being enclosed in a properly addressed envelope, complete with a return address in the upper left-hand corner. The stamp in the upper right-hand corner left the rest up to Canada Post on a class project that got my stamp of approval for being so classy. “Thank you for taking the time to read my letter. I hope this has put a smile on your face knowing you have made a difference,” wrote Charlie, who also expressed his sym- pathy at the passing of my father-in-law from COVID-19. I want Charlie to know there’s more than a smile on my face. I want to thank Mrs. Pere- les for ensuring the lessons learned in her class go well beyond reading and writing. I’d like to think I might get another letter from Charlie in the future. If I’m lucky again, that one will include Charlie’s resume for a reporting job at the Free Press.

Feb. 8: A memorial for those we’ve lost

The deaths keep coming. Four more today pushed Manitoba’s toll from COVID-19 to 850. Each day, this province moves closer to a grim milestone of 1,000 lives lost. And yet for the all the death that surrounds us here and elsewhere, this ongoing tragedy still seems hard to comprehend. Even though the coronavirus is global, it remains invisible. We wear masks to protect ourselves from something we can’t sense. We social distance to keep away from something always lurking — and now mutating. In a different time, a time before this pandemic, we would have done a better job of collectively mourning, of honouring the dead, of marking the grief of a tragedy of this scale. But COVID has robbed us of all of that, too. Unlike other tragedies, say 9/11, there is nothing visual for us to hold onto, nothing concrete for us to wrap our heads around. Even M. Katherine Shear, MD, a psychiatrist and founder and director of the Center for Complicated Grief at Columbia University, has a hard time of conceiving of COVID’s death toll. “I even have trouble. When you talk about the World Trade Center, there’s a way in which I think of all those people dying at once,’’ she explained to Elemental in an article published in December. “You talk about the pandemic, it has been eight or nine months now since we started seeing these increased death rates, and that feels so, so spread out, and it feels so individual somehow.” At various points in the pandemic, readers have written to me to express similar concerns about the unseen and unheard nature of this collective tragedy. They’ve wanted to know more about those taken by COVID. They wanted them to be more than just statistics. One reader suggested we find a way to create a running record of lives lost, much like was done on the pages of the Free Press during both World Wars. In all cases, they wanted to find a way to make COVID-19 tangible. Local artist Kenneth Lavallee has his own vision for a physical tribute to those taken by something we can’t see, can’t touch, can’t fully comprehend. His concept involves a herd of 204 life-sized bison statues running down the narrow strip of land in the centre of Memorial Boulevard. There’s a political edge to his proposal, but there’s no denying the dramatic impact it would have today and for future generations. Will we memorialize COVID-19? And how should this time be remembered and marked? With the coronavirus still taking more lives, at least we will have more time to ponder how we as a province want to answer those questions.

Feb. 9: Fallout from e-commerce

If the pandemic has been very, very good for Jeff Bezos, it stands to reason that the pandemic has been very, very bad for waste from plastic packaging. Amazon made Bezos an even richer man in 2020 as those trapped at home turned to the online delivery behemoth at a pace that pushed his wealth up by $70 billion to a record $185 billion. Amazon also made for a messier planet in 2020 as those trapped at home turning to the company triggered an estimated 465 million pounds of plastic packaging waste. According to the U.S.-based not-for-profit Oceana, Amazon’s plastic air pillows alone would circle the Earth more than 500 times. “The amount of plastic waste generated by the company is staggering and growing at a frightening rate,” Oceana’s senior vice president, Matt Littlejohn said late last year. “Our study found that the plastic packaging and waste generated by Amazon’s packages is mostly destined, not for recycling, but for the landfill, the incinerator, or the environment including, unfortunately, our waterways and sea, where plastic can harm marine life.’’ Of course, Winnipeg is not immune from Amazon’s allure or the fallout from e-commerce. One of our front-page stories for Wednesday›s print edition takes stock of what that all meant for waste and recycling here. No big surprise as 2020 really was a garbage year. Winnipeggers threw out more trash as residential garbage increased by 12 per cent. The city reports the surge from home deliveries led to an 18 per cent increase in the amount of cardboard recycled. I guess the smile on those Amazon boxes guilted us into ensuring as much of that cardboard as possible made into the blue bin.

Feb. 10: A virus in the body politic

The dramatic images from the never-before-seen video played as part of former U.S. president Donald Trump›s impeachment trial on Tuesday are ones I pray we never witness again in a democracy. There’s anger. There’s hate. There’s a fetishized sense of mission that leads not only to wanton violence, but also to death. Watching the timeline from that fateful Jan. 6 day, juxtaposing Trump’s incendiary invective with the storming of the Capitol, I couldn’t help but think there’s a COVID-19 metaphor in there, as well. At various points in their march from the Trump rally to the seat of American democracy, there were choke points separating those seeking to do damage from those at risk of harm. At every one of those critical junctures, the barricades were breached and the mob — fuelled by lies, falsehoods and conspiracy theories — surged forward. Take away their camo hoodies, flags and profanity, and it’s not hard to imagine them as the RNA virus that has breached all our defences. Both have been exacerbated by misinformation. Both spread virally. Both have proven deadly. Both will remain a threat long after they are addressed by impeachment or inoculation. And both have been aided and abetted by those running social-media companies. Today, Twitter took another step toward repairing the damage by declaring Trump is banned for life from its platform, even if he someday returns to the White House as president. On Monday, it was Facebook announcing the newest measures to crack down on lies about vaccinations on its platform and Instagram. Let the record show the latest gesture from Mark Zuckerberg’s company came two months into the largest-ever vaccine rollout in the United States. Over the course of the pandemic, there has been no shortage of criticism of those in government leading the war on COVID-19. In time, voters will be able to deliver a verdict on their handling of this public-health crisis. Over the course of Trump’s impeachment trial, facts and evidence will be put on the record about his role in a dark day for the United States. In time, there will be a chance for a reckoning of the way Trump infected the body politic, for his incitement of an insurrection. But those in charge of the platforms that spread the infodemic that enabled the spread of both Trumpism and COVID-19 apparently have immunity. Sure, some baby steps have been taken toward making amends, but they always seem to be too little, too late. Facebook, Twitter et al. all had a chance to control the choke points much earlier to stop the spread of what has harmed and will continue to harm. Let’s not forget there was an incubation period between the U.S. vote and the attack on the Capitol. Let’s not forget there was an incubation period for SARS-CoV-2, a window to limit its virality, if not in the first wave, then during the second wave. But in both cases, social media giants valued content that was viral — the lies, the half-truths and half-baked ideas, the conspiracy theories — over content that was in the public interest. While they profited, we are all paying the price.

Feb. 11: A perpetual state of emergency

Imagine for a moment a stretch of road that has been part of your daily commute for years. You observe the speed limit because you know the speed limit. But with little warning, that speed limit changes. Now you need to be driving 10 kilometres slower. You lighten up on the gas and make a mental note to watch your speed. However, a few weeks later, the speed limit falls by a further 15 km/h. And this time, not only do you need to be going slower but also ensure the only people in your car are members of your household. So your new normal for months means a slow and steady commute that prohibits you from offering a ride home to any of your co-workers as you drive by while they are freezing at the bus stop. Except that the new normal is about to change. Again. Not only is the speed limit increasing by 25 km/h, but now it’s legal to drive your car to church again on Sunday morning. Huh? As we try to ride out the pandemic, I’ve worried there’s been no shortage of distracted driving. Not only are we unable to see what’s on the road ahead of us, public health orders keep changing, so navigating COVID-19 becomes even more of a challenge. What’s deemed essential one week, isn’t the next. We can’t dine out, until we can — but only with family members. I’m pretty sure the last time we went to a restaurant our friends joined us and that was OK as long as there were no more than five at our table. Or was it 10? No wait, 10 was the limit for funerals. Until it wasn’t. I have no idea how many times lockdown-related laws in Manitoba have changed because I’ve lost count. One calculation from early this year showed COVID rules have changed the law 64 times in England. Maybe, we’ve had more. Maybe, we’ve had less. At any rate, we will no doubt see many more legal changes before COVID runs its course. Such is life in a perpetual state of emergency. The good news involving the new laws coming into effect at one minute after midnight on Feb. 12 is that they will allow us to do more, not less. The good news for those who aren’t lawyers is these latest orders are posted online in both official languages for all to see in a way that should give everyone a passing understanding of the legal lay of the land. Before you dig too deep into the various subsections, I’d suggest you take note of the preamble atop the latest public health order: WHEREAS: 1. The pandemic caused by the communicable disease known as COVID-19 is creating public health challenges in Manitoba that will continue to evolve and that require urgent action to protect the health and safety of people across Manitoba. In other words, the evolving nature of the health challenges means our laws will have to keep changing, too. In fact, the newest public health order will expire in just three weeks. So as soon as you get used to the new laws you’ll likely have to learn new ones.

Feb. 12: Love in the time of the coronavirus

Romance ain’t easy in the midst of a pandemic. The whole social-distancing journey of the past 11 months really hasn’t been conducive to lovin’, touchin’ and squeezin’ each other. And even though Manitoba’s restaurants reopened just in time for a Valentine’s Day dinner date, the new rules preventing those from different households eating together means a romantic night out is out of the question for couples still in the dating phase. Love may be in the air, but so is COVID-19. I still count myself as a hopeless romantic so I believe love will conquer all — even the coronavirus. That’s why I was drawn to this story from education reporter Maggie Macintosh about students at one Winnipeg elementary school finding a way for Cupid to overcome COVID.

MIKAELA MACKENZIE / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Wolseley School teacher Vanessa Wiehler (left), and her daughters, Heidi 4, and Emma, 7.

“Roses are red. Violets are blue. Students at Wolseley School wanted to trade valentines — but amid the COVID-19 pandemic, they had to keep safety in mind, too,” is the lede to Maggie’s story. While many schools called off Valentine’s Day gift exchanges this year, citing the risk of virus transmission, some opted to put the cards into quarantine. “Despite all the challenges we’re facing, we’re trying to give the kids some normalcy,” said Vanessa Wiehler, a Grade 5-6 teacher at Wolseley School. All valentines and pre-wrapped treats had to be brought in by Feb. 9. The cards and candies were then set aside in brown paper bags for 72 hours. After isolating, they were invited to the classroom Valentine’s Day party. “It’s spreading out the joy a little bit,” said Wiehler, who handed out Harry Pot- ter-themed valentines for her students with a Dumbledore pun on them. (They say, “I A-Dumbledore You”.) If the students at Wolseley can keep Valentine’s Day alive in the pandemic, then there’s hope for all of us. Happy Valentine’s Day and stay warm this long weekend! We’ll be back in your inbox after Louis Riel Day. One quick footnote: we’re experiencing some issues delivering this nightly newsletter to MTS customers. Earlier, we had similar problems with Shaw customers. While we work with MTS to ensure our mailings get to the intended inboxes, if you ever appear to be missing any of the Free Press newsletters you›ve subscribed to, please contact us at [email protected].

Feb. 16: The storm won’t last forever

In the B.C. (Before Coronavirus) era, Bear Grylls would frequently be on our family room T V. We’d watch him jump out of airplanes, scale sheer rock faces, ford icy streams and dine on exotica from creepy-crawlies to raw goat testicles. No matter the challenge, no matter the odds, he always found a way to make it out alive. But all his experiences in the wild, all his SAS training, weren’t enough to outrun COVID-19 “I was like, ‘Wow! This is really wiping me out. I’ve been going a month and I’m still rubbish,” Grylls told the Guardian of how he was laid low by COVID nearly a year ago. Having been unable to stay ahead of the virus, Grylls is back with a new series on Net- flix where he takes his chances outrunning a lion and wrestling with a boa constrictor. But the ultimate survivor has some takeaways from life with the disease that he shared in his interview with the Guardian. He worries COVID has stolen so many childhood dreams. He also opens up about his reliance on faith and how he sees a religious di- mension to the pandemic. “The messages are so simple, aren’t they? Be kind, look out for each other, work together. Maybe listen a bit more.” For someone who always manages to get out of a tight spot before the end of his show, Grylls had this to say about what might emerge once COVID no longer has us in its grip: “Hopefully, somehow, the world will emerge a kinder, humbler and more unified place. But in the way, there’s a lot of pain. A storm’s always going to come, and you’ve got to hold tight to those around you. That’s the key lesson from this time. You’ve got to adapt, use ingenuity — and know that the storm won’t last for ever.” Amen to that!

Feb. 17: Pallister nixes voting at schools Once upon a time, Brian Pallister was a teacher. It’s been decades since he first taught social studies in Gladstone, but the premier delivered a lesson today that might get top marks from teachers, students and parents. On the subject of a possible snap federal election, Pallister said his officials will ensure Elections Canada knows Manitoba schools will be off-limits in the midst of a pandemic. “I want to be very, very clear to them and to the people of Manitoba, that should the federal government decide it wants to call an election this spring, Manitoba schools will most certainly not be made available for polling stations,” Pallister said. “Keeping our students, our schools safe, remains a top priority for our government, for our Manitoba families.” It’s hard to argue with Pallister’s logic on this one. If schools are off-limits to parents, how can we let anyone on the voters list in to wander the hallways? And if the solution to keep students safe on voting day involves keeping them home for even more remote learning, then that’s a policy option that deserves a failing grade. But if you do a little homework on Pallister’s lesson plan from Wednesday’s briefing, you’ll soon realize there’s more at play than simply the health of students, teachers and their families. First, Pallister is protecting schools from what is now only the theoretical threat of an election. In other words, there’s a not-so-subtle shot at Prime Minister Justin Trudeau tied up in a broader jab at the Liberal government for its failure to secure a steady supply of vaccines for the provinces. Then there’s the fact Elections Canada has done some pandemic planning of its own in order to minimize public health risks if ballots need to be cast anytime soon. Among the possible changes are measures to make voting by mail easier and more popular. Legislation introduced in December would pave the way for polling on weekends — a move that greatly reduces risks to students and staff if schools are used as polling stations. Finally, there’s the recent record of the three provincial elections held in the midst of the pandemic. While New Brunswick, British Columbia and Saskatchewan all made use of schools as polling stations, there’s no evidence voting spread the virus to students or teachers. However, there’s plenty of evidence voters found a way to mark their ballot without showing up at polling stations on election day. In the case of British Columbia’s vote on Oct. 24, the percentage of total votes cast by mail was 31.4 per cent compared to 0.3 per cent in the 2017 election. On voting day, 28.8 per cent of the total vote was cast in person, compared to 60.8 per cent in the previous B.C. election. Of course, none of these elections was conducted while new COVID variants were lurking. (Newfoundland’s election, originally called for Feb. 13, has been something of a mess as a COVID outbreak ended in-person voting and mail-in voting has been extended until March 5.) So Pallister the teacher is right to worry about how safe students would be if schools were polling stations. But Pallister the premier knows a lesson plan that invokes the politics of fear is a teachable moment sure to play to his base. Feb. 18: COVID-19, in few words

Much has changed in the six months since we turned to this nightly newsletter’s readers for their six-word stories of the biggest story of our lives. We’ve had more cases, more lockdowns. We’ve had far too many deaths. Vaccines have arrived and been delayed. And now we worry about variants. In my mind, all of these developments and more are perfect for another edition of your pandemic prose. So the literary challenge is the same as the one we issued in September: Compress your COVID-19 story into exactly six words. Then send us that short story and we will share your six in this newsletter. Here’s a sample of a half-dozen stories we published in September that said so much in so few words: • Too many memes. Too little time. — Michele Casey • Travel on hold, staycations now rule. — Janis Arnold • Work school gym shop party home. — Dean Jenkinson • Stay close, but stay away. — Gord Gibben • Grandchildren, hugs, before. Memories, photos, now. — Yvette Beaudry • Holding on to holding onto grandkids. — Sande Harlos Please send your six-word story along with your name to: [email protected]. We’ll take of the rest and publish them in an extra long edition of this newsletter next week. On your mark, get set. Write!

Feb. 19: When the going gets tough in Texas

The settings for the weather app on my phone means the temperature in Cancun is always just a swipe away. I’ve kept it that way since our Christmas family vacation to Mexico shortly before COVID-19 struck to remind me of a pledge to my wife and children that we would return again to the Mayan Riviera once it was safe to do so. Throughout the lockdown, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve checked out Mexico’s weather as I imagined what it would be like to again escape to the beach, to lounge poolside, to swim with sea turtles. I checked it again as I sat down to write this nightly newsletter and saw Cancun was 25 C — which is muchas warmer than either Winnipeg or Texas. I lumped in Texas with Winnipeg’s polar vortex misery because one of its senators, Ted Cruz, didn’t wait until it was safe to do what I’ve been dreaming of for much of the pandemic. With his state reeling from a lack of electricity and power, with both the U.S. State Department and the Centres for Disease Control warning Americans to avoid travel to Mexico because of COVID-19, Cruz decided to hop on a plane with his family to Cancun. As tempting as it is to focus on Ted’s Excellent Adventure, I will leave it up to others take aim at the man whose campaign slogan once boasted he was “tough as Texas.” For instance, Jimmy Kimmel, who joked: “Snake on a plane, right there? Headed, ironically, to the very place he tried to build a wall around.” Instead, I want to talk about those who stayed behind to help Texas weather the polar vortex, those prepared to roll up their sleeves to make a difference despite the chill and COVID. As the temperatures plunged along the Texas Gulf Coast, thousands of endangered sea turtles were suddenly at risk. The extraordinary deep freeze left the cold-blood- ed turtles stunned and motionless, bobbing on the surface of the water in danger of drowning. Fortunately, volunteers armed with nets took to the sea in boats to rescue the turtles and get them to safety on shore in make-shift hospitals. “It’s the true definition of community,” one of the rescue volunteers said in an interview with NBC’s Today. “We are all coming together to help out one other.” I’ve thought a lot about community over the course of the pandemic; how we’ve defined and distinguished ourselves. Time and time again, I’ve marvelled at the willingness of collective sacrifice for the greater good. Despite the social distancing, there’s no shortage of people nearby willing to put themselves at risk, to do whatever needs to be done. Despite lockdown fatigue, the wellspring of kindness and caring from friends, neighbours and co-workers keeps flowing. Fortunately, those heartwarming definitions of community outnumber the tales of community leaders from here to Texas who used their privilege, standing and exemptions to vacation afar while everyone else was told to stay home. We will get through this because of those willing to come together to help each other out. We will get through this in spite of those, like Cruz, who when the going got tough, decided to turtle.

Feb. 22: Signs of hope

The parking lot was already overflowing early Sunday morning at the small shrine to Canada’s secular religion. Under a brilliant blue sky, they had gathered for the first time in months, their prayers finally answered in the new public health orders. The parents were all standing to deliver the chorus of hallelujahs through faces covered with masks. The children were wearing masks, too, along with helmets, shin pads, gloves and skates. There were shots. There were goals. There were dekes. There were saves. There was a good old-fashioned outdoor hockey game. In the midst of a pandemic! As I tied my skates on the remaining rink ready for my morning hockey devotions, I gave thanks those kids were getting a chance to chase their hockey dreams like I did was when I was eight years old. I gave thanks our local hockey association hadn’t decided to throw in the towel. I gave thanks my community club decided an $8,000 water bill to flood the rinks was worth the price, even if it was only for a few weeks of hockey. So much of this pandemic, so much of our lives this past year, has been about what we can’t do. All too often, doing nothing was the default position out of an abundance of caution. But life can’t be about nothing. It has to be about something. Nothing is not a basis for hope. But something can be. And yet, as we move forward through the vaccination chapter of the viral narrative, is anything really going to change? Listen to the public health messaging surrounding vaccines. What we initially believed was going to be salvation in a syringe is frequently portrayed as anything but. David Leonhardt summed up the vaccine alarmism this way: “The coronavirus vaccines aren’t 100 per cent effective. Vaccinated people may still be contagious. And the virus variants may make everything worse. So don’t change your behaviour even if you get a shot.” Leonhardt notes that while that messaging has a basis in truth, it remains fundamentally misleading about the surest path to herd immunity. By focusing on the uncertainty of the vaccines, we are certain to increase vaccine skepticism. By focusing on the negatives from the shots, we do little to convince people to roll up their sleeves. “It’s as if many experts do not trust people to understand both that the vaccines make an enormous difference and that there are unanswered questions,” Leonhardt wrote in his morning newsletter for the New York Times. “As a result, the public messages err on the side of alarmism: The vaccine is not a get- out-of-Covid-free card!” For many, Sunday mornings are still about faith. Regardless of whether you are deeply religious or a firm atheist, I’m betting we all need a reason to believe we can move past COVID-19 and its various variants. We need some signs that provide hope from the experts leading the public health responses. That’s not to say they should sugar-coat things, but after nearly a year of public health messaging that has been overwhelming negative, we could sure use something that was positive. I saw hope in the eyes of those parents and their young hockey players Sunday morning. I’d like to think their willingness to do something, rather than nothing, is a win for public health over COVID. I wonder what could be achieved if their positivity was bottled up so we could give everyone a much-needed shot in the arm.

Feb. 23: A good news day

In the news business, we tend to focus on stuff that went wrong or ended badly. That’s why we write stories on planes that failed to land safely instead of all the planes that come and go without incident. It’s why we do a story on a fire or an accident. It’s why a story on a fire or accident that results in the loss of life gets bigger play than ones in which no one died. I’m providing this news primer tonight because the pandemic has again twisted our usual journalistic yardstick. After more than four straight months of daily death counts, Manitoba finally reported zero fatalities related to COVID-19 in today’s update. The last time Manitoba went a day without reporting a COVID fatality was Oct. 20. Since that date, 844 Manitobans have lost their lives to the coronavirus. During that non-stop run on fatalities, our deadliest day was Dec. 5 when a body count numbering 19 was announced. I’ve thought a lot about how the pandemic has moved the goalposts for news as the death toll crept ever higher. The first fatality announced on March 27 was front-page news. We made sure to dig deep in our reporting so we were able to identify Margaret Sader as the viral victim to ensure Manitobans learned something about the woman the dental community mourned as a «a beautiful kindred spirit» and community «icon» who had an excellent memory for product codes and people›s orders. But in the months since that first death, we became numb to the passing of those from COVID. There were simply too many, too often. When death becomes a daily occur- rence, when it is to be expected, when it is announced daily with a rote offer of condolences, it rarely qualifies as news. Sure, we were able to do stories on some of those who died, but for the most part, all we could do was add the scant details the province released to stories that rarely made it to the front page: a male in his 50s from the Winnipeg region. A female in her 70s from the Winnipeg health region. A female in her 80s linked to the outbreak at the Maples Personal Care Home. A male in his 90s linked to an outbreak at Grandview Personal Care Home. And on and on it has gone without fail since Oct. 20, a morbid monotony that had no end. Until today. I know there will be many more days to come when there will be announcements of deaths linked to COVID. But today, this editor was happy to report that no deaths qualified as news. March 1, 2021: Racial disparity

At this point in the pandemic, it should hardly qualify as news. For months we’ve seen warning after warning from afar about the racial disparity behind COVID-19. There have been headlines about the disproportionate impact of the virus on the Black community. We’ve seen how Indo-Canadians were bearing an undue burden as cases surged in the Toronto area this past fall. For much of January and February, we’ve watched how quickly the pandemic can rip through Indigenous communities in Northern Manitoba. And yet, today was the day the province finally released a report confirming what had long been suspected but never officially acknowledged: Manitoba’s pandemic is rife with ethnic and racial disparities. The short version of the story is that white folks are under-represented when it comes to COVID cases, while those of colour are over-represented. The longer and more complicated version of this story is why it took the province so long to release this information based on data it began gathering in May. At one point in early October, the province said it was planning to release the report. What happened between then and now? Well, the curve that had flattened over the summer began to spike ever higher, leading to case counts and a death toll that made Manitoba the country’s viral hotspot for months. Along the way, the province doubled down on concerns about stigma as an explanation for why certain information couldn’t be shared with the public about outbreaks. Even today, Dr. Brent Roussin was offering caveats so the release of the race-based data didn’t add to the stigma. But today was also a day when the case counts and positivity rates were low enough that the report could be released without spreading undue fear. Far better to tell those who are Black, Filipino or Indigenous that they are at a higher risk of con- tacting COVID when the disease’s infection rate is at a six-month low, right? Except, Blacks, Filipinos and Indigenous Manitobans deserved to have that information long before the second wave hit. They should have known what they were facing so we could have demanded something be done to better protect those at greater risk. Should there have been surveillance testing in neighbourhoods home to many Fili- pinos? Could there have been more outreach to improve contact tracing within the Black community? Might public health orders have been better designed to protect First Nations with more Indigenous input? I don’t know the answers to those questions, but presumably the province does. At this point in the pandemic, I can’t imagine why we should have to wait any longer for explanations of how race-based data will be used to better protect those bearing the brunt of COVID. March 2: What’s in a name

Most of us have a pretty good idea how hurricanes are named. The name of the first one of the year starts with the first letter of the alphabet. The second starts with the second letter and so on and so forth through the alphabetical order until hurricane season has come to an end. Thanks to the World Meteorological Organization, the list of names for hurricanes in the Atlantic is already preset for 2021. Ana is up first. Bill is second. Claudette is third. If need be, Wanda is on standby if we get all the way to Victor. But the viral naming game isn’t so easy or straightforward; in fact, the international science journal Nature described the confusion reigning over the naming of new COVID variants as “a bloody mess.” I spent some time reading up on pandemic nomenclature today because Manitoba officially announced the arrival of a new variant in the province. In making that announcement, a province that has time and time again warned about the need to avoid stigma related to COVID-19 did just that by linking the two new cases of B.1.351 to South Africa. They did likewise with the additional case of B.1.1.7 by noting that variant was first identified in the United Kingdom. The stigma surrounding any virus is why experts try to avoid names tied to geo- graphic locations, people’s names, cultural references or anything else that might spread fear. “We would like this nomenclature to be easily understood and not include country names because we want to remove any of the geopolitical issues,” Maria Van Kerk- hove, an infectious disease epidemiologist and COVID-19 technical lead for the World Health Organization in Geneva told Nature. “We are trying to avoid ‘the UK variant,’ ‘the South African variant,’ ‘the Brazil variant’ — and there will be more variants.” So, as much as Donald Trump used his presidential bully pulpit to spread the usage of the Chinese Virus or kung flu, the more neutral, if boring, SARS-CoV-2 remains the official name of COVID-19. If given the choice, I’d rather never have to learn the name of any variants as COVID-19 is bad enough without any new spinoffs. Unfortunately, we now have something more to worry about in Manitoba as these latest variants pose new public health threats. But aside from the Shakespearean question of what’s in a name and whether B.1.351 or not B.1.351 will spread stigma, there was some information Manitobans deserved but didn’t get today. Dr. Brent Roussin shared the stage with Premier Brian Pallister earlier in the day, conveniently before the announcement of the new variant might have upended the news-conference script about the latest reopening plans. So, the new variant arrived with nary a word from the chief provincial public health officer. Our efforts to get answers to our questions from Manitoba Health went unanswered. I suppose one way to stop the spread of any stigma involving the good people of the United Kingdom and South Africa is for our public health officials to say as little as possible about the new variants. Alas, I think the public deserves more. The public deserves better.

March 3: Sunny forecast

At long last, a forecast that promises sunny days as part of a trend line that offers a taste of a soothing spring after a long, hard winter. If you think I’m referencing the prolonged thaw coming our way that hints at a chance of double-digit daytime highs, you’d be wrong. I’m actually looking at the forecast from rainy England that shows the impact vaccinations are already having at protecting those over 80. The analysis from Public Health England this week estimated that a single dose of either the Pfizer or AstraZeneca vaccine is 80 per cent effective at preventing hospital admissions in those over 80. Meanwhile, a single jab of Pfizer led to an 85 per cent reduction in deaths for those aged 70 and over. In the words of England’s deputy chief medical officer Professor Jonathan Van-Tam, the data “gives us those first glimpses of how, if we are patient, and we give this vaccine programme time to have its full effect, it is going to hopefully take us into a very different world in the next few months”. That much different world comes into focus as those most vulnerable to COVID-19 are better protected. That means they are less likely to get infected, to be hospitalized, to lose their life to the virus. That means there’s less pressure on ICU wards, nurses and doctors. And if there is less pressure on the health-care system, then there will be even less risk to easing up on restrictions largely put into place to protect those most at risk. Of course, England is far closer to that very different world from the one a global pandemic has forced upon us for much of the year. The United Kingdom has delivered jabs to 32.1 per cent of its population. Meanwhile, Canada is well back at just 5.4 per cent. In other words, we have a long, long way to go. But with each jab, we get closer to where we need to be, to where we want to be. In Manitoba, the latest on the vaccine front shows 80,127 doses have been administered. Manitoba also broadened vaccine eligibility today to include people aged 89 and over in the general population and over 69 for First Nations people. By comparison, anyone aged 70 and over in the UK can now book their shot. In other words, we still have a long, long way to go. However, we need only look to England to see the promise that comes from each dose that goes into seniors. The dark clouds of the pandemic haven’t yet parted, but at least we know what needs to happen for the sun to break through.

March 4: A toast to Prof. Brian George Gardiner

Ecclesiastes teaches that to every thing there is a season. A time to be born and a time to die. A time to weep and a time to laugh. A time to mourn. At no point in that third chapter does Ecclesiastes tell us there is a time to Zoom. Zoom can do many, many things, but expecting video-conferencing software to convey the hard truths of grief or the depth of mourning, well, that’s a bridge too far. Alas, a livestream bridge was what our family stood upon today as we formally bid farewell to my father-in-law who died alone in a London-area hospital less than a month after testing positive for COVID-19. We gathered on the couch here in Winnipeg. We watched as his coffin was carried to the front of a small chapel in faraway England. There were but 30 masked mourners able to attend due to lockdown restrictions. And that was about it for the rituals of grieving. No hugs. No handholding. No real contact. No real comfort. A virtual event far from what any of us would have wanted or needed, but a virtual something we hoped would be better than doing nothing. Obviously, our family is far from alone as death has been around all of us since the pandemic began dominating our lives and taking lives. But what is the long-term impact of all that grief curtailed by restrictions on the traditional rites of mourning that have helped us since the dawn of time? What scars to our collective psyche will appear long after we’ve finally achieved some sort of herd immunity? I don’t think witnessing today’s webcast means I can say I’ve actually been to a Brit- ish funeral. Grace Dent, on the other, hand, has not only the experience I lack but also some insights on the befuddlement of grief she experienced with the recent passing of her mother. The Guardian’s restaurant critic wrote about how British grief centres around the making of sandwiches, the healing power of post-funeral food that would taste like “delicious, carefully restored semi-sanity.” She noted how somewhere between the cocktail sausages, madeira cake and double gin and tonics, some joy was clawed back from the sadness. “But that cannot happen right now. We bury our dead, sad in spirit and very much empty of stomach. Full of love, but not of egg mayo and cress sandwiches, cut into neat triangles and piled on stainless-steel platters. It’s an odd sort of grieving, is this.” In a bid to claw some joy from sadness tonight, we did what might have been done if we had been able to join with family and friends in England. My father-in-law loved it when we ordered in a good Indian curry dinner that we would bring to him, along with a double gin and tonic, as he sat in his favourite chair. So that’s what we ordered and what we used to toast him at the end the day dedicated to celebrating his 88 years on earth. Doing something had to be better than doing nothing. Here’s to my father-in-law, Prof. Brian George Gardiner: May he rest in peace!

March 5: Bottoms up

At various points in the pandemic, I’ve dreamed about leaving on a jet plane. When would it again be safe to fly? How might COVID-19 have changed the experience on board an aircraft and at airports? At no point did my imagined flights of fancy involve an anal swab for COVID, and yet that is exactly what is greeting international arrivals upon landing in China. The invasive test is now part of China’s coronavirus containment measures as officials believe traces of the virus might last longer in the digestive tract than in the respiratory tract. If you thought the so-called brain-tickling nasal swab was bad, I’m not sure how you’ll feel about a sterile cotton swab being inserted as much as five centimetres into your undercarriage. But my guess is that “asinine” might be the most complimentary description offered. I’ve gone as far as to imagine landing in China, exhausted after a long overseas flight. Instead of people racing to get off the plane first, I see no one moving from their seat because of this new proctological protocol. I wonder what I would say after I finally get to the front of the customs line when asked if there is anything I’d like to declare. Meanwhile, Reuters reports a number of countries are bummed out by the testing variant in China, demanding an end to the procedure Japanese officials said causes “great psychological pain.” One can only hope. At various points in the pandemic, showing my Air Miles card at Safeway or the Liquor Mart was a vote of confidence that I would fly again someday. At this point, though, China has moved to the bottom of my list of travel-point re- demption destinations.

March 8: A week that was

In my office and in our newsroom boardroom, the front pages from the week are tacked on the wall so we have a running tally of what made the cut. Newsrooms rarely set aside time for reflection, but to the extent that we reflect, that gallery, updated daily, serves as a starting point for discussion. Do we need to adjust the news mix? Have we had the right tone? And what about tweaks to our presentation? Given the nature of our business with a focus verging on obsession with the next pressing deadline, those front pages often serve a much simpler goal for me: without them I might be unable to remember what we did even a day earlier. As we enter the week that will mark the one-year point of the pandemic’s arrival in Manitoba, I took a look in the rearview mirror of front pages to recall what the news mix looked like in the week before COVID-19 became the story of our lifetime. In the days leading up to the announcement of three presumptive cases in our province, there was a sense of normalcy to the news that now seems even more distant given what we’ve all endured. The headlines focused on library cuts, Uber revving up to roll into Winnipeg and Peter Nygard’s companies seeking bankruptcy protection. We weren’t ignoring COVID, it’s just that the pandemic was a story happening elsewhere, in places such as Italy, far from Portage and Main. In our March 10 edition, the province’s plan to purchase personal protective equipment was enough to move COVID to one of our top stories. But if the Manitoba government had any premonition of what was about to happen to lives and livelihoods, it was well hidden. The then health minister, Cameron Friesen, cut short a news conference after 16 minutes without answering further questions about the level of the province’s preparedness. Even Dr. Brent Roussin downplayed the perils of the pandemic, saying: “The risk of acquiring COVID-19 in Manitoba remains low but as we see the transmission of this virus to other parts of the world, that risk is likely to increase over time.” On March 12, our top story was the World Health Organization declaring the coronavirus crisis a pandemic, while other pointers noted the NBA had suspended play and the United States restricted flights from Europe. Things were starting to spread. The crisis was escalating as it headed our way. Things were about to change. Forever. By March 13 everything had changed, including our front-page design that has remained in place every day since. PANDEMIC HITS HOME was the headline that screamed across that front page. In the 12 months since, the pandemic has dominated our front pages in ways I couldn’t have ever imagined. That’s not going to change this week as we mark the first year of the pandemic with a series of special projects and features. But I’d be lying if I said I don’t long for the day when COVID-19 isn’t what’s staring at me each day from the front pages on the wall of my office.

March 9: Bad luck or bad planning?

There’s bad luck and then there’s bad planning. A COVID-19 vaccine booking hotline going down, as was the case in Manitoba on Monday, could be chalked up to bad luck. The same initially appeared to be the case for B.C.’s new regional vaccination booking system that became overwhelmed the same day. But what if the hiccups weren’t due to bad luck? What if the busy signals, dropped calls and other headaches are the result of bad planning? There’s no shortage of blame to go around for the glacial pace of Canada’s vaccination efforts. While much of it can be laid at the feet of the federal government for the vaccine deals struck with Pfizer and Moderna, vaccine booking systems are clearly the responsibility of the provinces. So what does Manitoba have to say about Monday’s glitch? “A regular maintenance upgrade, which had been scheduled for non-operation hours in the evening, inexplicably took place during hours of operation. We are currently looking into why this took place,” a spokesman told our reporter Katie May. As for British Columbia’s call-centre chaos, Premier John Horgan and Telus emerged to take the blame for Monday’s mess. “We had a bad day yesterday,” Horgan said. “We being all British Columbians that live in Vancouver Coastal Health. We’re taking steps today to correct that.” While Horgan and Telus work on better connecting British Columbians with the vaccine, should we ask where Manitoba’s online booking system is? We know one is coming because provincial officials say they are testing it. But given that Manitoba is nearly three months into its vaccination program, is bad luck or bad planning the reason another booking portal won’t be ready until April? Throughout the pandemic, we’ve had a run of bad news; however, the arrival of vaccines means we can now make our own luck. With each dose administered, more lives can be saved. The faster we vaccinate, the sooner we reduce the viral risk for everyone. Given the need for speed, I’d like to think every province is dialled in on the critical job at hand. There’s bad luck and then there’s bad planning. Please tell me we aren’t having both at the same time.

March 10: Llama Sac

Reporters are always looking for a good quote. We have an ear for sound bites and a knack for getting them from those we interview. But the other day, I was pleasantly surprised by a bag of quotes that landed on my desk via the post. Each quote was laminated with care and apparently tailor made for me with a mix of inspiration reflective of my love of hockey, running and the craft of journalism. Here’s but a sampling of what I pulled out of the bag: “I followed my heart and it led me to the rink.” “If you wait for perfect conditions, you’ll never get anything done.” “There are no traffic jams on the extra mile.” “When I am on the ice, I am at home.” “Excuses are useless. Results are priceless.’’ Fortunately, there was an accompanying letter explaining why I was the lucky recipient of a Llama Sac, so named for the laminated cards within. “I have never given one of these to someone I have never spoken to,” explained Laurie Hall, a regular reader of this nightly briefing. “Why you? It has taken me a long time to figure out why it was so important for me to say thank you. It is for going above and beyond, for sharing yourself and your family and connecting it all with the rest of the world. You are a prime example of valuing people, which goes beyond the ‘job.’ Whether it is happiness, sadness, grief, frustration or joy, it is there in the words you write to us as readers.” I’m now blushing, so that’s another word that can be added to Laurie’s list. I had to call Laurie to thank her, and what I learned in that conversation is that she’s much like everyone else trying to get through the pandemic. COVID means she hasn’t been able to see two of her grown sons living in British Col- umbia. Christmas dinner and gifts were delivered from a distance. She fears Easter will be the same. The only consistency in her life is change — as even the arrows in her grocery aisles get switched. And yet, Laurie and her Llama Sacs are finding a way to do something positive in the midst of this overwhelmingly negative event. As we mark our first trip around the sun since COVID-19 landed in our province, I’ve thought not only about the sacrifices we’ve made, but the steps taken to keep one foot moving in front of the other. Little about the past year has been easy. There was nothing any of us could have done to prepare for the past 365 days we’ve endured. Fortunately, when we’ve had to dig deep, we’ve frequently found something to grab hold of, to keep calm and carry on. Sometimes that was an inner strength we were surprised to find. I’m guessing more often than not, it was a helping hand from family, a friend, or even a stranger such as Laurie. “We all need to catch our breath, and many of the ways we do that are currently not available,”’ Laurie advised me. “So for the days you’re stuck longer at your desk, can’t skate or play hockey, or just need something different for a moment, pull out a Llama quote.” Like I said, reporters are always looking for a good quote — especially in a pandemic.

March 11: Faces of the pandemic

It began in Manitoba with one case officially announced on March 12, 2020. One year later, COVID-19’s death toll in our province stands at 911 lives — and counting. Over the past 365 days, our newsroom has produced in excess of 911 stories about the story of our lifetime, but we haven’t come close to telling enough stories about those whose lives were taken by this deadly disease. To mark the one-year point of the pandemic, we wanted to do more for those who are among the viral body count. We wanted to do more because they deserved to be more than just statistics. Unfortunately, the narrative of this public health crisis has been bound up in concerns about privacy. The province has bent over backwards to ensure next to nothing is released about those taken by COVID. But in protecting their privacy, we’ve lost sight of their humanity. Kevin Rollason’s reporting assignment was to restore some of the humanity that’s been missing from the record of the pandemic in our province. We are so grateful that 10 families were prepared to share with Kevin the stories of their loved ones who were among the anonymous numbers in a grim and ongoing count. “These are only a few of Manitoba’s faces of the pandemic,’’ Kevin writes in his lengthy feature. “We know how they died, but this is how they lived.”

March 12: Promise after the plague

I tend to think of anniversaries as occasions for celebration. That’s why I’ve refrained from using the celebratory term to describe the one-year mark of the arrival of COVID-19 in Manitoba. After a year of fear, loss, distance, tumult, agony and death, I just don’t feel like there’s much to celebrate. There is, however, much that needs to be done to reflect on where we were a year ago and where we are today after enduring not one but two waves of the deadly virus — with the possibility of a third just around the coronavirus corner. Friday’s front page was dedicated to marking the lives of the more than 900 Manitobans included in the mounting viral death toll. Saturday’s front page also shines a light on the painful losses endured but with a view to the healing to be gained. “In 48 hours, the World Health Organization classifies the novel coronavirus a global pandemic,” writes Ryan Thorpe as he stitches together a timeline of all that was happening a year ago. “In 72 hours, Winnipeg records its first presumptive case of the virus and the NHL suspends its season. In a week, Premier Brian Pallister declares a state of emergency in Manitoba. The plague year begins. The virus is not contained; the centre struggles to hold. “Things fall apart.’’ It’s a wonderful turn of phrase to describe why fragments are all that far too many are left holding. But Ryan’s feature then shifts to the opportunities that come when it’s time to put everything back together. While I tend to be an optimistic person by nature, I never thought in terms of promise after the plague. And yet, the lessons of history and pandemics past are clear about the possibilities that come from breaking from the past to imagine a new world. “It is our job to make sure the victims of the pandemic did not belong to a society that allowed the virus to kill what was best about our world,” Ryan writes. “We may not be able to change their fates, but we can make a difference to their stories by rewriting them into a better narrative, by giving this story — this collective story that swept us all up in 2020 — a happier more fitting ending.” Please take some time to mark this point in the pandemic by reading what Ryan wrote. If we are lucky, and if there is enough moral fortitude and political courage, the reset to come could be something we all one day celebrate. Epilogue

By now, we have all learned never to assume anything about COVID-19 — but one year into the pandemic, the trend lines for Manitoba appear to be headed the right direction. Case counts are down, as are deaths. While the vaccine rollout has been slow to start, each time a Manitoban rolls up their sleeve for the jab, everyone is a little bit safer. But more infectious variants are lurking, as well as other viral curveballs yet to come that could undermine efforts to flatten the curve. As always, our newsroom is here to provide the information you need and deserve. Whatever happens before this pandemic runs its course, I hope you will be healthy and safe.

Acknowledgments

Our nightly COVID-19 newsletter and this ebook would not have been possible without the remarkable team that is the Winnipeg Free Press. Among those in our newsroom, I have to single out Wendy Sawatzky, my associate editor for digital news, for first putting the concept of a pandemic-related newsletter on my radar screen and then helping make it a reality in short order. I need to thank Rob Williams for being there most nights to edit and send the newsletter, and Michael Pereira for taking care of the graphics night after night. Designer Leesa Dahl took care of laying out the book, while photographer Mike Deal used his watercolour talents to provide the cover art. Our digital bureau, under the leadership of Christian Panson, kept an eye on all the technical aspects of a nightly newsletter and troubleshooting the odd glitches that came along the way. Eric Bailey designed the briefing on the fly and helped it find your inbox. As always, our publisher Bob Cox ensured we have the tools we need and the room to run in order to serve our growing audience both before the pandemic and especially once it hit. Beyond the debt owed to my Free Press family, there is the mounting one due to my family at home who have been there for me throughout the pandemic. They never imagined their lives would be part of a nightly newsletter, and other than the odd eye-roll, they never really complained about my recounting their experiences during COVID-19. A strong Manitoba needs a strong Free Press

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