Seven COVID-19 deaths reported in Manitoba Wednesday

Seven more people with COVID-19 have died in Manitoba, public health officials reported Wednesday.

Four of the deaths — a woman in her 40s, a man in his 60s, a woman in her 70s, and a woman in her 80s, all from Winnipeg — are linked to the Alpha variant of concern first identified in the U.K.

The three other people who died were from the Southern Health-Santé Sud region, and all were in their 70s or 80s.

The number of COVID-19 deaths in the province since the beginning of the pandemic is now 1,111.

As of Wednesday morning, the net-new number of cases in Manitoba is 143, the majority (80 cases) of which are in the Winnipeg region.

The current five-day COVID-19 test positivity rate is 9.7 per cent provincially and 9.2 per cent in Winnipeg.