Manitoba reports death of man in 30s with delta variant, 44 new COVID-19 cases

Manitoba is reporting 44 new cases of COVID-19 as well as the death of a man in his 30s linked to the more contagious delta variant on Wednesday, a provincial news release says.

The man from the Winnipeg health region is the third Manitoban to die of COVID-19 after contracting the delta, or B.1617.2, variant. The first was reported last month.

To date, 1,166 Manitobans have died of COVID-19.

Of the latest COVID-19 cases, 16 are in the Winnipeg health region, 12 are in the Interlake-Eastern health region and 11 are in the Southern Health region.

The remainder are single-digit case numbers for the Northern Health Region (three) and the Prairie Mountain Health region (two).

The current five-day COVID-19 test positivity rate is down slightly to 3.5 per cent provincially, from 3.6 per cent on Tuesday. The rate in Winnipeg dropped to 2.9 per cent, down from 3.2 per cent the day before.

There are 105 Manitobans in hospital with COVID-19, down by three from Tuesday. Of those, 29 are in intensive care.

The total number of COVID-19 cases linked to variants of concern increased by two, to 16,385, according to the province's variant of concern dashboard.

There are currently 595 active cases stemming from coronavirus variants, the majority of which are linked to the B.1.1.7, or alpha, variant. There are also 41 active cases stemming from the delta variant, and 171 cases connected with an unspecified variant.

The province says 1,897 COVID-19 tests were completed on Tuesday.