Although people everywhere are becoming weary of new and updated provincial health orders every week, once again the province has announced tightened restrictions. Premier Brian Pallister and Dr. Brent Roussin, the chief provincial health officer, appeared at a press conference Thursday afternoon to announce the latest measures.

Beginning at midnight on Friday, November, 20, no gatherings will be allowed inside private residents—which includes homes, cottages, and vacation properties. There are a few exceptions in place, to accommodate for childcare, healthcare, home care services, tutoring, constructions/repairs, and emergency responses.

One important exception involves people who live alone. These people may invite one other person to visit their home.

Another new restriction will apply to large retail businesses. In addition to having to respect capacity limits (either 25 percent capacity or 250 people, whichever is lower), retailers are only allowed to sell essential items in-person. This rule primarily affects big box stores. For example, if you visit a Walmart or Costco, you should expect that non-essential items will be cordoned off and be unavailable for purchase.

These non-essential items may still be purchased online, by telephone, or by remote means for delivery or curbside pickup.

In addition, people are prohibited from assembling in a gathering of more than five people at any indoor or outdoor public place, including the common areas of a multi-unit residence, with the exception of a health-care facility or critical business that adheres to health protection measures. These measures are intended to allow for weddings, funerals, and baptisms to take place with a capacity limit of five people.

“The public health orders introduced when Manitoba moved to Critical (red) on the #RestartMB Pandemic Response System were the most restrictive we had introduced since the beginning of this pandemic,” says Pallister. “However, despite those orders and strong recommendation from Dr. Roussin to ‘stay home’ at this critical point in our fight against COVID-19, too many Manitobans are gathering or shopping for non-essential purposes and creating a greater risk to public health. We are now at a point where even tighter restrictions are needed to significantly limit social contact in order to protect one another.”

To help enforce these measures, additional enforcement was announced earlier this week to crack down on those who choose not to respect public health orders.

As always, the government is encouraging people to contact the province’s tip line to voice their concerns and share information about possible breaches of public health orders.