556 new COVID-19 cases, 1 death reported in Manitoba on Thursday

Manitoba reported 556 new COVID-19 cases and one deathon Thursday on its provincial dashboard.

That's the most new cases in a single day since May 21, when there were 594.

Sixty per cent of the cases 355 are in the Winnipeg health region, which also accounts for the latest death.

The Southern Health region has 62 new cases, the Prairie Mountain Health region has 51, the Northern Health Region has 47 and the Interlake-Eastern health region has 41.

More specific information about the person who died sex, age andany links to outbreaks or virus variants is not yet available. The Manitoba government no longer holds news conferences or sends news releases on Thursdays to update case numbers, although some figuresare available online.

The total number of deaths in Manitoba since the pandemic started is now 1,369.

The five-day test positivity rate in the province is now 10.9per cent, the first time it has reached double digits since mid-June. It was 9.9 per cent on Wednesday.

There is no update on the rate for Winnipeg, which was 10.6per cent on Wednesday.

Another statistic that is rapidly climbing is the province's seven-day average daily case count, which has now reached 329. One week ago it was 180.

It hasn't been this high since it was 329 at the start of June.

There are 144 Manitobans hospitalized with COVID-19, which is an increase of seven from Wednesday. Twenty-eight of those in hospital arein intensive care units, which is an increase of four.

Of the total cases reported Thursday, 440 (79 per cent)are in fully vaccinated people, while84 (15 per cent) are in people who were not vaccinated at all and 32(sixper cent) are in people who are partly vaccinated.

The distribution shifts toward the unvaccinated when looking at severity of symptoms. Amongthe patients being treated for active COVID-19 in intensive care, 71 per cent are unvaccinated, 10 per cent are partly vaccinated and 19 per cent are fully vaccinated.

The numbers are much more equal among those in hospital, however. The non-vaccinated make up 47 per cent while the fully vaccinated account for 49 per cent. Just three per cent are partially vaccinated.

School cases

The total number of COVID-19 cases linked to schools since classes started on Sept. 7 is now 2,376, the province's dashboard onschool datasays

That's an increase of 108since Thursday, when it was last updated.

Of those, 2,012 are student cases (up 71) and 364 are staff (up 37). There have been 463 schools that have reported one or more cases, which is an increase of 16.

Within the last 14 days, the period in which cases are considered active, there have been 532 cases: 437 student cases and 97 staff cases across 216schools. Three schools have gone into remote learning.

There are 817 schools in the province.

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

As of Thursday, 84.7 per cent of eligible Manitobans have received one dose of a coronavirus vaccine, 78.3 per cent have both doses and 17.9 per cent have a third shot, the provincial vaccine dashboard says.

Eligibility for first and second doses now includes anyone age five or older. Anyone 18 or older is eligible for a third dose, if there's been a long enough interval since they received their second dose.

The total number of doses administered in the province is now at 2,395,148 with 5,835 more scheduled to be given on Thursday.