Health officials say two Manitobans with COVID-19 have died and 342 new infections have been identified over the last three days.
One of the latest victims is a man in his 60s whose death, reported Saturday, is linked to an unspecified variant of concern and an outbreak at Benito Personal Care Home in the Prairie Mountain Health region.
The other victim is a woman in her 70s from the Northern Health region whose death was reported Monday.
The latest cases include 97 reported Saturday, 149 reported Sunday and 96 reported Monday.
According to officials, 63 of Manitoba’s latest infections are among people who had yet to be vaccinated, seven were partially vaccinated and 26 were fully vaccinated.
Well over half of the 483 new cases reported across the province in the last four days come from the Southern Health region, which makes up roughly 15 per cent of Manitoba’s population.
The Southern Health region — which has seen much lower vaccine uptake than other health regions in the province — has seen 266 new cases since Friday.
Over the same period, 41 infections were reported in the Northern Health region, 95 cases were found in the Winnipeg Health region, 41 were found in the Prairie Mountain Health region and 40 were reported in the Interlake-Eastern Health region.
Since March 2020, Manitoba has reported a total of 63,688 lab-confirmed COVID-19 cases and 1,248 deaths linked to the virus.
With the latest infections, health officials say there are currently 1,273 active cases of COVID-19 in Manitoba.
According to numbers from the province, there are now 98 Manitobans hospitalized due to COVID-19, 13 more than were last reported Friday. There are 25 in intensive care units as a result of the virus, officials said.
Officials are reporting a new outbreak at a grade 11/12 class at École Régionale Notre-Dame in Notre Dame de Lourdes. They say non-immunized students are self-isolating and the school has been moved to the restricted, or orange, level on the province’s pandemic response system.
Health data shows 1,954 tests for COVID-19 were performed Sunday.
Manitoba reported 141 new COVID-19 cases and two deaths Friday.
Questions about COVID-19? Here are some things you need to know:
Symptoms can include fever, cough and difficulty breathing — very similar to a cold or flu. Some people can develop a more severe illness. People most at risk of this include older adults and people with severe chronic medical conditions like heart, lung or kidney disease. If you develop symptoms, contact public health authorities.
To prevent the virus from spreading, experts recommend frequent handwashing and coughing into your sleeve. They also recommend minimizing contact with others, staying home as much as possible and maintaining a distance of two metres from other people if you go out. In situations where you can’t keep a safe distance from others, public health officials recommend the use of a non-medical face mask or covering to prevent spreading the respiratory droplets that can carry the virus. In some provinces and municipalities across the country, masks or face coverings are now mandatory in indoor public spaces.
For full COVID-19 coverage from Global News, visit our coronavirus page.