18 more deaths, 360 new cases of COVID-19 in Manitoba on Saturday

The province is reporting 360 new cases of COVID-19 in Manitoba and 18 more deaths on Saturday, according to a news release.

That bring the total number of deaths related to the novel coronavirus to 483.

This is the second-highest number of deaths reported on a single day since the start of the pandemic, following 19 deaths announced on Dec. 5 and matching the 18 announced on Wednesday. 

The COVID-19-related deaths reported Saturday include eight linked to outbreaks at Winnipeg care homes:

• Three people linked to the outbreak at Charleswood Care Centre — a woman and two men, all in their 80s.
• Three people linked to the outbreak at Park Manor Care Home in Winnipeg — a woman in her 60s and two women in their 90s.
• Two men — one in his 70s and one in his 80s — linked to an outbreak at Oakview Place Personal Care Home.

The latest fatalities also include:

• Seven other people from the Winnipeg health region: a man in his 40s, a woman and two men in their 60s, two women in their 70s and a man in his 80s.
• A man in his 60s from the Interlake-Eastern Health region.
• A man in his 80s from the Southern Health region.
• A man in his 80s linked to the outbreak at Bethesda Regional Health Centre in Steinbach.

The majority of the new cases — 198 — are in Winnipeg, with another 56 in the Interlake-Eastern health region, 52 in the Northern health region, 28 in the Southern Health region, and 26  in the Prairie Mountain Health region.

The province is reporting 5,630 active cases and says 14,637 people have recovered from the virus.

There are now 289 people in hospital due to COVID-19, including 42 in intensive care, the province's update said.

That figure reflects the number of COVID-19 patients in hospital who are still considered to be in their infectious period. The province did not release a total number that includes longer-term, non-infectious patients.

On Friday, Manitoba Shared Health Chief Nursing Officer Lanette Siragusa said there were 388 people in hospital who had COVID-19 at that point, or had been infected in the past. That included 298 still in their infectious period as of Friday and another 90 patients who were past that stage, but still needed in-patient care, she said.

Manitoba's five-day COVID-19 test positivity rate — a rolling average of the tests that come back positive — is up again to 13.9 per cent. In Winnipeg, the rate held steady at 13.2 per cent.

On Friday, 2,585 tests were done, bringing the total number of lab tests completed since early February to 386,007.  

Another outbreak was declared at the River Ridge II Retirement Residence on Scotia Street in Winnipeg. The site has been moved to the critical, or red level of the province's colour-coded pandemic response system. 

Four outbreaks are now considered over, including those at the Women's Correctional Centre in Headingley, Middlechurch Home of Winnipeg, and Lions Prairie Manor and Douglas Campbell Lodge in Portage la Prairie.

This province's latest update comes a day after Manitoba saw its highest jump in COVID-19 cases in almost two weeks on Friday, with 447 new cases.

More than 100 of those cases were confirmations of rapid tests done recently on Shamattawa First Nation, public health officials said, where cases have skyrocketed.

Meanwhile, the province also announced Saturday that about 900 front-line health-care workers who meet certain age and workplace criteria can now make appointments to receive a COVID-19 vaccination.

The province expects to start administering the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine to eligible workers as soon as Wednesday, according to a Saturday news release.