11 COVID-19 deaths reported over 4 days in Manitoba, hospitalizations down 30

There were 11 COVID-19 deaths over the past four days in Manitoba while hospitalizations due to the virus dropped by 30, the province's online dashboard says.

There are now 553 people in Manitoba hospitals with COVID-19, the lowest number since mid-January. That includes 31 in intensive care, down two since Friday, the last time the province provided a data update. 

The latest deaths were three in the Winnipeg health region, three in the Southern Health region, three in the Prairie Mountain Health region and two in the Interlake-Eastern health region.

No information was provided Tuesday about when those deaths occurred over the past four days, nor about the ages and sexes of the people.

The number of people in Manitoba who have died from COVID-19 since the pandemic started is now 1,660, the dashboard says.

The province also reported 199 new COVID-19 cases on Tuesday, although health officials have repeatedly said those numbers are a significant undercount of the total number of active cases.

Manitoba is strictly restricting access to PCR tests at provincial sites and does not track most rapid test results.

Of those 199 cases, 74 are in the Prairie Mountain Health region, 48 in the Winnipeg health region, 33 in the Northern Health Region, 24 in the Interlake-Eastern health region and 20 in the Southern Health region.

There are 12,189 COVID-19 cases listed as active in Manitoba and 115,447 as recovered, which is also an undercount.

Manitoba's five-day test-positivity rate decreased to 17 per cent from 18.5 per cent on Friday. That's the lowest it has been since Christmas Eve.

As of Tuesday, 86.1 per cent of eligible Manitobans have at least one dose of a coronavirus vaccine, 81.7 per cent have two doses and 43.4 per cent have received their third shot, the provincial vaccine dashboard says.

The total number of doses administered in the province is now 2,824,266, with just 221 scheduled to be given on Tuesday.