This column is not aimed at any one person or group. There are some aspects of COVID-19 that have scared me, confused me and others that have upset me.
The biggest entry in that last category is in how news on individual cases has been handled by the two provinces we cover here - Manitoba and Saskatchewan. It’s no secret I’ve had plenty of disagreements with both governments before. This is different. This isn’t a matter of ideology - this is about public safety.
Let me explain. The Northern Health Region [NHR] covers hundreds of thousands of square kilometres - 396,000 of them, according to the NHR’s website. The region covers more than 50 communities.
When covering such a large area, specificity is the name of the game. While some issues remain constant throughout the region - like the effect of being far from most specialized services - others are not. For example, a study by the Office of Rural and Northern Health into diabetes in the north found sky-high rates of diabetes in some communities - as high as almost half of all people in Island Lake. In Flin Flon, that rate is less than 10 per cent. A one-size-fits-all approach does not work for provincial health, nor does it work for the north.
Let me get to my point. When both provincial governments do their daily briefings of COVID-19 cases and information, they only refer to cases by region. Manitoba only refers to cases by the province’s five regional health authorities. On the Saskatchewan side, the government has referred to “the north” as a region, then broke it up into the “north” and the “far north” without telling anybody which was which. By the way, any community that used to be covered by the Mamawetan-Churchill River Health Region, including Creighton and all nearby Saskatchewan communities, counts as “far north” - the more you know.
Neither province or health authority, is identifying positive cases of COVID-19 by community.
I'm stymied.
The party line from health officials - and once again, I’m not blaming any specific people here, more the ideas - is that the current way helps protect the privacy of infected people and their families. I understand that. I’d be mighty red-faced or scared if I tested positive for COVID-19. I wouldn’t want my name splashed across a paper.
In such a large area as the north, we need more information than just “the north”. While I would certainly care if a positive COVID-19 case was reported in Lac Brochet, I would care much more if there was one in Flin Flon.
When news of a potential COVID-19 case in Flin Flon broke Sunday night, the first thing I did was begin emailing health officials for confirmation. Everyone I spoke with on record refused to confirm (or deny, for that matter) whether there was a case here. No yes, no no. No information whatsoever.
People in small towns are going to find out information, if they want it, through the grapevine, as is tradition. The conversation will happen. Flin Flonners will gossip. All refusing to add or confirm info to these cases does is add space for errors and lies to fill the void where the truth should be. In a vacuum of evidence, people make things up.
Maybe there’s a compromise to be had here. Do you know about the Youth Criminal Justice Act? It’s a piece of legislation that prevents media and police from circulating key information about some criminal offenders, used for most offenders under age 18.
Under that act, media cannot share the name or certain information about an offender unless there are special circumstances. That’s happened literally once I can think of in the almost four years I’ve been reporting in Flin Flon.
This is not to compare people who have tested positive for COVID-19 with criminals – the connection between the two is simply that each carry an amount of public concern.
We have already deemed it necessary to avoid printing the names of possible criminals because they may still have a future, but some information - their hometown, their age or the crimes they’re wanted on - can still be reported. Anyone who really wants to know who the person is can go to court and watch, but nobody does.
I think we can use that act as a model for COVID-19 cases - share some details, not all, with the public. We are not talking about sharing people’s names or intimate details of their lives. Even basic information - approximate age, gender, where they were, what they’ve been doing - is better than nothing.
In the absence of any information from an official source, some nasty rumours, most of them unfounded, have been passed around Flin Flon cyberspace. Those have included threats, harassment and outright malicious lies.
The public gets to hear the truth, the medical establishment gets to help aid public health, the person who tested positive stats anonymous and everyone’s happy.
Sharing the right information ensures the best outcome. This can be absolutely vital for coordinating a public response or to stop a panic if a rumour about a positive case ends up being false.
If someone tests positive for COVID-19, I want to know anything that could affect me as soon as possible. It’s not about being a busy body. It’s about staying alive.
The need for the public to know about a novel, highly contagious disease has to be considered. Halfway measures cannot be tolerated.
We at The Reminder will continue to give you everything we hear on COVID-19. We may not be in our offices - I’m going on week three of working from home - but we’re still working our butts off, calling and messaging those in charge to give you the straight dope, free of spin.
You will not find anything in our pages meant to unnecessarily freak you out. We do not and will not go out of our way to scare you. It could sell us a few more papers or get us more clicks online, but it doesn’t serve the community or our people.
We need to know what’s happening. If those in a position to know won’t share, it doesn’t make the problem go away.
