Which church activities can and cannot take place under Level Orange

The province is explaining why a wedding or funeral is not included in religious ceremony exemptions. 

As churches can continue to operate at a 30 per cent maximum capacity, many Winnipeg churches are wondering what that means for other church services such as youth nights.

Dr. Brent Roussin says regular religious ceremonies can continue to take place under the Level Orange guidelines and that these ceremonies are not limited to Sunday mornings. 

"For religious gatherings, for the regular religious ceremonies, they can be up to 30 per cent, up to 500 within that facility," the Chief Medical Officer says. 

As for what events qualify, Roussin says it depends on what is being done at the gathering. He says if the gathering is a regular religious ceremony, groups can operate under 30 per cent. If the event, such as family fun day, is not part of the church's regular religious ceremony, the gathering size limit decreases to 10.

"If they are not covered elsewhere in the order they are in that group of 10."

A gathering with regular religious ceremonies can take place within the 30 per cent maximum. Other events that do not include a regular religious ceremony must adhere to the 10 people maximum.

"It is disturbing to see how much this virus has disrupted us. We are trying to get through it."

While weddings and funerals could fall into the religious ceremony category, they are limited to ten people. Roussin says this is because of the close nature of the events. 

"We know how disruptive this virus has been to people and people that had plans. Those decisions are not made easily but for events like weddings and funerals the physical distancing is not really conducive to those types of events and that is why they get affected."