Rising COVID-19 case counts in Manitoba’s Southern Health region led the province to record its largest single-day jump in new infections since June on Thursday.
Health officials say 154 new cases of the virus have been identified, with the largest number — 70 infections — reported in the Southern Health district.
Another 21 infections were reported in the Northern Health region, 33 were found in the Winnipeg Health region, and 15 each were found in both the Prairie Mountain Health region and Interlake-Eastern Health region.
It’s the highest one-day case count reported in Manitoba since mid-June when the province’s hospitals were pushed to the brink and 18 Manitobans were sent to ICUs out of province.
Despite making up roughly 15 per cent of Manitoba’s total population, 415 of the 892 cases reported over the last week have come from the Southern Health region.
The five-day test positivity rate in the Southern Health region is 14.5 per cent, nearly three times the provincial rate, according to a new provincial site providing the data for all five health regions.
The Northern Health region has the second-highest five-day test positivity rate at 9.5 per cent, according to site, and the Winnipeg Health region is the lowest at two per cent.
The Southern Health region — where vaccination uptake has been lower than the rest of the province — also appears to be driving rising COVID-19 hospitalization rates.
Manitoba reported 115 COVID-19-related hospitalizations Thursday — nine more than the day before — with the highest number — 47 patients — coming from the southern district.
Fourteen of the 24 patients currently in Manitoba ICUs as a result of COVID-19 are also from the southern region, health data shows.
Health officials also reported two more COVID-19-related deaths on Thursday and released details of three other deaths reported since Tuesday.
Four of five of the latest deaths are from the Southern Health region. The latest deaths include:
- a man in his 80s from Southern Health (reported Tuesday) linked to an unspecified variant of concern;
- a woman in her 70s from Southern Health (reported Wednesday) linked to an unspecified variant of concern;
- a man in his 80s from Prairie Mountain Health (reported Wednesday) linked to an unspecified variant of concern;
- a man in his 40s from Southern Health (reported Thursday) linked to an unspecified variant of concern; and
- a man in his 80s from Southern Health (reported Thursday) linked to an unspecified variant of concern
A provincial site tracking vaccinations shows provincewide, 87 per cent of eligible Manitobans had received one shot of vaccine and 83.9 per cent had received two doses as of Thursday. But vaccine uptake in the southern district remains much lower, with 68.3 per cent of the eligible population listed as immunized, according to the site.
The latest cases bring Manitoba’s total number of active cases to 1,145, with 61,685 Manitobans reported to have recovered from the virus since March 2020.
Since the start of the pandemic, Manitoba has reported 64,083 lab-confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 1,253 deaths linked to the virus.
Meanwhile, health officials have declared new outbreaks at Health Sciences Centre, unit GD2, surgery, in Winnipeg; Portage District General Hospital, medicine unit; and Fernwood Place in Steinbach.
All three facilities have been moved to restricted, or red, on the province’s pandemic response system.
An outbreak has also been declared at Stony Mountain School, Grade 5 and 6 classes in Stony Mountain. The classes have been moved to remote learning and the school has been moved to the restricted, or orange, level on the province’s pandemic response system.
The province also released the latest data on its enforcement of COVID-19 public health orders Thursday.
They say nine tickets and 40 warnings were issued between Oct. 25 and Oct. 31.
One ticket worth $1,296 was given to an individual and eight $298-tickets were doled out for not wearing a mask in an indoor public place, the province says.
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.
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