Volume 18 • No. 6 • March 16 - 31, 2022 Publication Mailing Account #41721512
Ivana Alawi
Mask mandate dropped Manitoba returns to “new normal”
8 8 Romel Chika, Nanay Cristy Fermin & Morly Alinio
In Manitoba, public health orders requiring masks in most public places ended on March 15. However, masks will continue to be required for all individuals attending a health-care facility, including visitors. As previously announced by deputy chief provincial public health officer Dr. Jazz Atwal, it’s because the province is now moving on to the endemic stage of its COVID-19 response. Since isolation orders are not in place for other types of infections, the public needs to “learn to live with COVID-19.” Schools and child-care facilities are encouraged to follow public health guidance but as of March 15, masks are no longer required for staff or students. See MASK p5
The COVID-19 pandemic is not over. With this relaxing of public health restrictions, the responsibility now lies on the individual to avoid getting infected.
Young Filipinos shape the future The future is unwritten. It is also right around the corner, with scores of young people around the world shaping it, improving it, and making it more equitable. Each year Britannica collates a list of young people under the age of 40 (as of January 2022), who have already left their mark on the present, and surely have much more invention, innovation, creation, and interpretation ahead of them. These young people work in many fields, embracing every corner and intersection of health and medicine, science and technology, business and entrepreneurship, social activism, and politics. They are people of ideas, framing the intellectual questions and concerns that will guide future thought. Unlike other lists or awards, these “Shapers of the Future” are not necessarily well-known, but they are certainly spurring incredible changes that will shape our futures. This year Britannica’s list of See FILIPINOS p6
The inclusion of four Filipinos in the Shapers of the Future list comes at the same time as Encyclopaedia Britannica donated 100 copies of its new one-volume children’s encyclopedia to the National Library of the Philippines.