Manitoba

A look back at the COVID-19 pandemic in Manitoba through photos

From empty downtown streets and care home visits through windows to remote learning and protests against pandemic restrictions, take a look back at the COVID-19 pandemic in Manitoba, five years after it started.

Some of the most striking images of the pandemic, 5 years after Manitoba's first cases were reported

A series of photos stacked over each other, depicting moments from the COVID-19 pandemic.
From care home visits through windows to remote learning to protests against pandemic restrictions, take a look back at the COVID-19 pandemic in Manitoba, five years after it began. (CBC Graphics)

It's been over five years since the first cases of COVID-19 were reported in Manitoba, marking the beginning of the province's experience of the global pandemic.

That pandemic changed what life looked like across Manitoba, from empty downtown streets and care home visits done through windows to remote learning and protests against pandemic restrictions.

It also resulted in the deaths of thousands of Manitobans. As of March 6, the province had reported a total of 3,821 COVID-19-related deaths — which includes deaths that happened 10 days before or 30 days after a lab-confirmed case, and patients who tested positive for COVID-19 but may have died of other causes, a provincial spokesperson said. 

Take a look back through some of the most striking photos of the COVID-19 pandemic in Manitoba.

A low vantage point of a street with buildings along the side and a few vehicles in the distance.
Few people ventured out on Winnipeg streets on March 23, 2020, due to social distancing orders related to the COVID-19 outbreak. (Tyson Koschik/CBC)

On March 12, 2020, Manitoba reported its first presumptive cases of COVID-19, marking the beginning of the pandemic's effect on people's lives across the province.

In those early days, normally busy downtown intersections were suddenly quiet and Winnipeg's airport was virtually empty. The province soon declared a state of emergency and banned large gatherings.

A person walks through an empty airport terminal.
The Winnipeg Richardson International Airport was empty amid the COVID-19 outbreak on March 17, 2020. (Trevor Brine/CBC)

Community spaces like libraries, parks, playgrounds and skate parks were quickly closed to the public.

A child stands before a large playstructure covered with yellow caution tape that says danger on it.
School divisions and municipalities blocked off play structures, which were deemed high-touch areas that couldn't be regularly cleaned. (Simon-Marc Charron/Radio-Canada)

Before long, people began stocking up on staples like toilet paper, leaving store shelves bare.

Empty shelves at a large grocery store.
Shelves that were once full of toilet paper and sanitary wipes had only a few packages of wipes left one night in March 2020 at Safeway on Corydon Avenue in Winnipeg. (Karen Pauls/CBC)

Soon, schools were closed too.

Chairs on top of school desks.
Schools sat empty in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. (Holly Caruk/CBC)

Signs aimed at health-care and other front-line or essential service workers began popping up in people's windows too, thanking them for the work they were doing during such an uncertain time.

A sign in a home's front window says, 'THANK YOU! ESSENTIAL SERVICES WORKERS.'
A house in St. James in Winnipeg shows support for essential services workers on April 2, 2020. (Tyson Koschik/CBC)

After most businesses were forced to close their doors during Manitoba's first lockdown of the pandemic, many were allowed to slowly start reopening under strict guidelines later in the spring of 2020.

An empty mall food court.
Polo Park mall reopened for the first time during the COVID-19 pandemic on May 4, 2020. (Austin Grabish/CBC)

But not all rules were eased just yet. Visits inside long-term care homes were still restricted for some time, leaving loved ones like Sam and Shirley Kleiman to have their visits through a window.

An elderly man blows a kiss through a window to an elderly woman sitting down inside, who blows a kiss back.
Shirley Kleiman was separated from her husband Sam because of visitor restrictions due to COVID-19 at her personal care home in 2020. (Submitted by the Saul and Claribel Simkin Centre)

Many COVID-19 test sites were soon in full swing, including drive-thru spots where lines of vehicles would often stretch down the block.

A person with a clipboard speaks to someone in a car.
An employee screens people for COVID-19 at a drive-thru test site on Main Street in Winnipeg on July 22, 2020. (Trevor Brine/CBC)

Later in the year, items considered non-essential — from toys to Christmas decorations to decorative paper plates — were blocked off in Manitoba stores, as new COVID-19 public health orders came into effect prohibiting their sale.

Store shelves with teddy bears on them are covered with clear plastic tarps.
Non-essential items like toys were blocked off from sale at a Winnipeg Superstore on Nov. 20, 2020. (Holly Caruk/CBC)

Later into the year, reporters got a rare look inside Winnipeg's Health Sciences Centre as staff at the province's hospitals worked to care for Manitoba's most critically ill COVID-19 patients, many on ventilators.

A health care worker in an emergency department is pictured.
A suspected COVID-19 patient is brought into a resuscitation bay in the adult emergency department at Health Sciences Centre in Winnipeg on Dec. 8, 2020. (Mikaela MacKenzie/Winnipeg Free Press/The Canadian Press)
A health care worker in an ICU is pictured.
A COVID-19 intensive care unit is shown at Health Sciences Centre in Winnipeg on Dec. 8, 2020. (Mikaela MacKenzie/Winnipeg Free Press/The Canadian Press)

As fall 2020 rolled around, many were making plans for mitigating the risk of COVID-19 as people were forced back inside during the colder months.

In schools, student desks were pushed apart or outfitted with cardboard partitions in what was far from a normal year.

School desks spaced apart.
Distanced desks were put in place at Balmoral Hall, a private school for girls, in Winnipeg in September 2020. (Jeff Stapleton/CBC)

At care homes, all-season outdoor shelters were intended to give families a space to visit.

Visitation pod at personal care home.
The Manitoba government sent all-season outdoor shelters to personal care homes so that visits could continue in colder months during the COVID-19 pandemic. (Peggy Lam/CBC)

Some who opposed the pandemic restrictions also started protesting against those rules around the end of 2020.

A group of people protesting.
Protesters fight against COVID-19 government restrictions at a rally in Steinbach on Nov. 14, 2020. (Austin Grabish/CBC)

Once the first COVID-19 vaccines were approved and made their way to Manitoba, health-care workers were the first in line to get their shots before they were rolled out more broadly across the province.

A woman puts her arms up with peace signs in celebration.
Sherry Plett, a registered nurse in Manitoba's Southern Health region, celebrates after receiving her first COVID-19 inoculation — and the second one given in Manitoba — from public health nurse Danielle Kim in the COVID-19 vaccination clinic at Health Sciences Centre in Winnipeg on Dec. 16, 2020. (John Woods/The Canadian Press)

Around the same time, outbreaks of COVID-19 were hitting some communities hard. In Shamattawa First Nation, a northern fly-in community, the military was called in to help.

Military members in camo gear.
The military sent resources to Shamattawa First Nation in Manitoba in December 2020, as the remote fly-in community dealt with the worst COVID-19 outbreak at the time in Manitoba. The community's chief said the test positivity rate was between 70 and 80 per cent and everyone was assumed to have contracted the virus. (Tyson Koschik/CBC)

In 2021, many Manitobans were getting vaccinated against COVID-19 at sites across the province.

A person in an orange vest administers a needle to a person sitting in a room full of other people.
People receive their vaccinations from Karen Balzer at a COVID-19 vaccination centre in a soccer complex in north Winnipeg on May 7, 2021. (John Woods/The Canadian Press)

Partway through the year, Manitoba hit a sombre milestone: more than 1,000 COVID-19 deaths had been recorded across the province.

Signs in memory of people who died are planted in the ground.
A Winnipeg memorial in honour of victims of more than 1,000 COVID-19 deaths in Manitoba at that point was on display in May 2021. (Jeff Stapleton/CBC)

As COVID-19 cases began to rise again, many students in Manitoba were again forced into remote learning.

Kids work at a table.
Children in Manitoba learn from home during a COVID-19 lockdown. (Tyson Koschik/CBC)

As businesses were allowed to reopen after another lockdown, it was with many strict rules in place — including capacity limits.

A sign on a business saying it has a capacity of four people at a time.
Winnipeggers dealt with new lockdown restrictions during COVID-19's third wave in Manitoba in spring 2021. (Tyson Koschik/CBC)

Going out into the world again after lockdowns ended often looked a little different. At nail salons, some staff wore personal protective equipment like face shields on top of their masks when they interacted with customers.

A woman in PPE at a nail salon.
Thao Dunphy wears personal protective equipment in her business, Nail House, in Westwood in Winnipeg. (Austin Grabish/CBC)

Protests against COVID-19 restrictions continued into 2021, including in Winnipeg and Steinbach, where some were opposed to vaccine rules and the vaccine passports being used at the time.

People with protest signs.
Protesters demonstrate against COVID-19 vaccines and vaccine passports in front of city hall in Winnipeg on Sept. 13, 2021. (Jaison Empson/CBC)

Protests against pandemic restrictions intensified in 2022, when people in semi-trailer trucks and other vehicles lined streets around the Manitoba Legislative Building in Winnipeg to call for an end to pandemic restrictions and vaccine mandates for truckers.

People protesting.
Protesters gather around the Manitoba Legislative Building to rally against government-mandated COVID-19 lockdowns in February 2022. (CBC)

Similar convoy protests happened outside of Winnipeg too, travelling down highways and blocking the international border crossing.

Trucks with signs about freedom.
A blockade of Highway 75 in Emerson, Man., protests COVID-19 restrictions in February 2022. (Tyson Koschik/CBC)

Around the same time, Manitoba announced plans to phase out its pandemic restrictions. And as the World Health Organization declared the global COVID-19 emergency over in 2023, chief provincial public health officer Dr. Brent Roussin called on people to move forward.

"That doesn't mean that the pandemic is over," Roussin said at the time. "But I do think that we need to find ways to heal."

Two seniors hug their grandchildren in a backyard.
Richard and Linda Davis hug their grandchildren Miles and Linda Carnegie at their home in Winnipeg — the first time they were able to do that in months, after Manitoba lifted some of its COVID-19 restrictions. (John Woods/The Canadian Press)