Manitoba reports 40 more hospitalizations on Tuesday

There are 40 more people with COVID-19 in Manitoba hospitals, including three more receiving intensive care, the province's online dashboard says.

There are now 418 people in hospital due to COVID-19, a new pandemic high since the province started reporting that statistic daily. The previous reported record daily number was 404 people in hospital on Dec. 16, 2020.

That includes 42 people with COVID-19 in intensive care units in the province, up from 39 the day before. A total of 96 patients, including those who do not have COVID-19, are currently in intensive care. 

Manitoba's pre-pandemic baseline ICU capacity was 72. 

There are now 1,426 deaths related to COVID-19.

The death total went down by one from the day before. The province has made corrections to COVID death statistics in the past.

The province also reported 2,012 new cases of COVID-19. As of Tuesday, the province reported 33,617 active cases and 68,892 people have recovered from the virus.

The number of cases is likely a significant undercount of the total number of active cases in the province, due to the rapid spread of the Omicron variant, which has overwhelmed testing capacity and led to many cases going unreported.

The majority of the newly reported cases are in the Winnipeg health region, which posted 1,280 cases. There are also 259 in the Northern Health Region, 171 in the Southern Health region, 168 in the Prairie Mountain Health region and 134 in the Interlake-Eastern health region.

Manitoba's five-day test positivity rate dropped slightly to 48.1 per cent, from 49 per cent on Monday. 

On Monday, 4,566 COVID-19 tests were done.

As of Tuesday, 84.6 per cent of eligible Manitobans (those age five and up) have had at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, while 78 per cent have had at least two and 31 per cent have had three, the provincial vaccine dashboard says.

There are just over 4,600 more doses scheduled to be given Tuesday.