4 more deaths, 116 new COVID-19 cases reported in Manitoba on Thursday

Manitoba reports 116 new COVID-19 cases and four deaths on Thursday.

Of those cases, 78 are in people not fully vaccinatedand the majority are in theSouthern Health region. There are46 new cases in Southern Health, with 38 of them not fully vaccinated.

TheNorthern Health Region has 34 new cases (20 not fully vaccinated), followed bythe Prairie Mountain Health region with20 (10 not fully vaccinated).

There are eight cases each in the Interlake-Eastern health region (four not fully vaccinated) and Winnipeg health region (six not fully vaccinated).

The most recent deaths were a man in his 40s from the Southern Health region, two women in their 60s from the Northern Health Region and a woman in her 80s from the Winnipeg health region.

All are linked to unspecified variants of concern.

The province also released details about three deaths reported Wednesdayon theonline dashboard. No information on sex or ages was provided at that time.

Those deaths include two menfrom the Southern Health region, one in his 60s andlinked to an unspecified variant of concern, and one in his 80slinked to the B.1.617.2 or deltavariant of concern.

The other was a woman in her 80s from the Winnipeg health region,linked to an unspecified variant of concern.

The total number of deaths in Manitoba since the pandemic started is now 1,244. That includes 236 due to variants of concern.

The province's five-day test positivity rate dropped to3.8 per cent (from4.2 on Wednesday). The rate is1.5 per cent in Winnipeg.

Of the latest 116 cases, 67 (58 per cent) are in people who are not vaccinated against COVID-19 and 11 (nineper cent) are in people who werepartly vaccinated,the province's dashboard says. The other38 (33 per cent) are in fully vaccinated people.

Among people hospitalized with active cases of COVID-19, 71 per cent are unvaccinated, while 21per cent are fully vaccinated.

As for patients in intensive care units with active COVID-19, 84 per cent arenot vaccinated and 16 per cent are fully vaccinated.

The province has declared two new outbreaks.

One is atSt.Malo School in the community ofSt. Malo, where agrades 5-6 cohort classroom has been moved to remote learning and the entire school has been moved to the orange, or restricted, level on the province's pandemic response system.

The other is at Portage Evangelical Church in Portage la Prairie. The church has been moved to the redor criticallevel of the Manitoba pandemic response system.

There are currently 1,153 active COVID-19 cases in the province, of which 656 are variants of concern.

A total of82 people are inhospitalwith COVID-19, including 24 in intensive care units.

Schools update

The total number of COVID-19 cases linked to schools since classes started on Sept. 7 is now 617, the province's dashboardwith school datasays.

Of those, 529 are student cases and88 are staff. There havebeen 196 schools that have reported cases.

Withinthe last 14 days, the period in which cases are considered active, there have been 222 cases:186 student cases and 36staff cases across 96 schools.

A map showing school-associated cases within the last 14 dayscan be seen here.

The province on Thursday also identified 109 more cases of variants of concern on itsonline variant dashboard. All remain unspecified, which means they have not been classified yet as a particular variant.

There have been20,691 variants of concern identified in Manitoba since the pandemic began.

Enforcement update

A total of 38 warnings and 24 tickets were issued during the week of Oct. 18-24 for violations of the provincial public health orders.

There were 20tickets given toindividuals for failure to wear a mask in an indoor public place. Each ticket carries a $298 fine.

There was one$1,296 ticket given to an individual and three$5,000 tickets were given to businesses.

Two of the business tickets went to repeat offender Chaise Caf and Lounge on Provencher Boulevard in Winnipeg. The other onewent to the Thirsty Lion Tavern on Dale Boulevard in Winnipeg.

As of Tuesday, 86.7 per cent of eligible Manitobans had received one dose of a coronavirus vaccine and 83.5 per cent had both, the provincial vaccine dashboard says.

Anyone born on or before Dec. 31, 2009, is eligible for first and second doses of a COVID-19 vaccine. Third dose booster shots are also being offered to certain groups of people.

Immunocompromised people and anyone wanting athird dose for travel purposes were the first to be offered the booster, which was announced in mid-September.

Since then it has been expanded several times to includeresidents and staff of First Nations personal care homes, then health-care workers and anyone who received full courses of the AstraZeneca or Johnson & Johnson vaccine,after evidence suggested waning immunity from those vaccines.

First Nations people living on reserve were then added and most recently the list grew to includeanyone living in congregate housing for older people.

More information about which groups are now eligible for a third doseand how soon after their latest dose they should get itis availableon the province's website.

There were 3,466 vaccine doses administered across Manitoba on Wednesday,bringing the total number given to 2,076,336 doses.

There were also 3,656 COVID-19laboratory tests completed Wednesday for a total of 1,082,323 since early February 2020.