Province announces 2 new cases of COVID-19 in Manitoba, bringing total to 17

Manitoba public health officials say two new cases of COVID-19 have been identified in the province, bringing the total number of lab-confirmed and presumptive cases to 17.

The additional presumptive cases announced late Wednesday afternoon involve:

• Case 16: A woman in her 50s from Winnipeg.
• Case 17: A man in his 70s from Winnipeg.

Public health investigations are underway, but both cases are believed to be travel-related, the province said in a news release.

The chief provincial public health officer said as of Wednesday morning, about 2,900 tests for COVID-19 have been completed in Manitoba. The 17 positive cases represent approximately .59 per cent of the total tests.

"Right now, that's telling me that we're still in the phase of active case finding, that we are actively searching out cases so that we can rapidly identify, isolate them and then perform contact management," Dr. Brent Roussin said.

Sixteen of the 17 cases identified in the province appear to be travel-related. One is unknown as public health investigations are ongoing.

Roussin said Wednesday morning there is no evidence of community spread in Manitoba at this time.

"We're going to see more cases for sure. And we're very likely to start seeing community transmission as more and more of this virus is imported here," he said.

No deaths or hospitalizations due to COVID-19 have been reported in the province.

As of 4:10 p.m., there are 655 confirmed and presumptive cases in Canada.