128 new COVID-19 cases, 4 deaths reported in Manitoba on Tuesday

Manitoba reported 128 new COVID-19 cases and four deaths from the illness on Tuesday.

TheSouthern Health region leads in both categories with 66 of the latest cases and three of the deaths.

The other death is from thePrairie Mountain Health region, which has 11 of the new cases.

TheWinnipeg health region has 30 cases,the Northern Health Region has 13and theInterlake-Eastern health region has eight.

The total number of deaths in Manitoba since the pandemic started is now 1,319.

More specific information about the latest deathssex, age, links to outbreaks or virus variants is not yet available. The Manitoba government no longer holds news conferences or sends news releases on Tuesdays to update case numbers, although some figures are available online.

Of the 128 cases reported Tuesday, 69 (54per cent) are in people who are not vaccinated against COVID-19 and seven (five per cent) are in people who werepartially vaccinated.

The other 52 (41per cent) are in fully vaccinated people.

Data on the most up-to-date hospitalizations and number of patients in intensive care units is not currently available on the province's dashboards.

The province's five-day test positivity rate increased marginally to 5.2 per cent from 5.1 per cent on Monday.

There is no update on the rate for Winnipeg, which was at 2.7per cent on Monday.

School cases

The total number of COVID-19 cases linked to school-age children or school staff since classes started on Sept. 7 is now 1,522, the province'sdashboard on school datasays.

That's an increase of 121 since the last update on Nov. 25.

Of the latest figures, 1,301 are student cases and221 are staff. There havebeen 360 schools which have reportedone or more cases.

Withinthe last 14 days, the period in which cases are considered active, there have been 350 cases:292 student cases and 58staff cases across 159 schools. There are 817 schools in the province.

A map showing student or school staff cases within the last 14 dayscan be seen here.

There were 1,875 laboratory tests completed on Monday, bringing the total number completed to 1,173,932.

The province has also administered 2,167,199 doses of coronavirus vaccines with another 2,395 scheduled for Tuesday.

Eligibility for first and second doses now includes anyone age five or older.

As well, a third dose is now available to anyone age 18 or older, as long as a minimum of six months has passed since the last dose.

As of Tuesday, 87.8 per cent of Manitobansaged 12 and up have received one dose of a coronavirus vaccine and 85.3per cent have both, theprovincial vaccine dashboardsays.

The percentage of those vaccinated in thefive to 11 age group has not been included in that datayet. The province did not have information about how many of theapproximately125,000kids in that group have received their first shot.