Manitoba tops 1K daily mark for first time with 1,123 new COVID-19 cases, 3 deaths

Manitoba reported 1,123 new COVID-19 cases and three deaths on Thursday, according to the provincial dashboard.

It's the first time the province has surpassed 1,000 new cases in a single day, pushingthe province's totalreported cases past another milestoneto78,606 since the pandemic began.

The lion's share of Thursday's new cases and deaths are in the Winnipeg health region, which posted 764 along with two deaths.

There are 115 new cases in the Interlake-Eastern health region, 111 in the Southern Health region, 93 in the Prairie Mountain Health regionand 40 in the Northern Health Region.

The other death was reported in the Southern Health region. The total number of deaths in Manitoba since the pandemic started is now 1,387.

More specific information about the people whodied 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, althoughsome figuresare available online.

The five-day test positivity rate in the province continues its torrid climb, reaching 27.3 per cent on Thursday, up from 24.2 per cent on Wednesday. One week ago it was 10.9 per cent.

The rate for Winnipeg was not updated since Wednesday's 26.2 per cent. That rate was just 4.4 per cent two weeks ago.

Another startling statistic isthe province's seven-day average daily case count, which is at 827. One week ago it was 329.

The province has recorded 5,049 new cases since Christmas Day.

There are 190 Manitobans hospitalized with COVID-19, which is an increase of seven from Wednesday. Twenty-nine of those in hospital are in intensive care units, which is unchanged from a day earlier.

Lanette Siragusa, chief nursing officer for Manitoba Shared Health, said Thursday that 190 figure is the highest number the province hasseen since the third wave. There has been a 32 per cent increase in the number of patients since last week alone, she said.

A breakdown of the latest cases by vaccination status can be viewed on an interactive chart on the government website.

Siragusa said there is asizeable population of younger peoplein hospital. As of Thursday morning, there were34 patients under the age of 40, including threein intensive care units.

As of midnight, there were 96 patients in ICUs acrossManitoba. That includes patients receiving both COVID and non-COVID care.

The critical care program's pre-COVID baseline capacity was 72 patients.

School cases

The total number of COVID-19 cases linked to schools since classes started on Sept. 7 is now 2,967, the province'sdashboard onschool datasays.

That's an increase of 591 since Dec. 23, when it was last updated.

Of those, 2,361 are student cases (up 349) and 364 are staff (up 242). There have been 511 schools that have reported one or more cases, which is an increase of 48.

Within the last 14 days, the period in which cases are considered active, there have been 868 cases: 562 student cases and 306 staff cases across 310 schools.

There are 817 schools in the province.

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

As of Thursday, 85 per cent of eligible Manitobans have received one dose of a coronavirus vaccine, 78.4 per cent have both doses and 22.2 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 2,457,051 with 8,596 more scheduled to be given on Thursday.