7 COVID-19 deaths reported in Manitoba on Friday as hospitalizations drop 11
26 COVID-19 deaths reported in the past week, 115 since start of February
Manitoba reported seven COVID-19 deaths and 11 fewer hospitalizations in a news release on Friday.
There are now 513 people in Manitoba hospitals with COVID-19, a drop of more than 100 in just over a week.
The hospitalization number includes 29 people in intensive care units, which is a decrease of three from Thursday.
The latest deaths were six people from the Winnipeg health region and one from the Prairie Mountain Health region.
Those in Winnipeg are a woman and man in their 60s, a woman in her 70s, a woman and man in their 80s, and a man in his 90s linked to an outbreak at Tuxedo Villa personal care home.
The death in Prairie Mountain was a woman in her 40s.
The province also released more information about deaths first reported Thursday. There were from the Winnipeg health region: a man in his 70s, a woman in her 90s and a man in his 80s who is linked to an outbreak at Health Sciences Centre.
The other was a woman in her 90s from the Prairie Mountain Health region.
The total number of people in Manitoba who have died due to COVID-19 since the pandemic started is now 1,675.
The province also reported 313 new COVID-19 cases on Thursday, bringing the pandemic total to 130,277. However, 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 the new cases, 108 are in the Winnipeg health region, 73 in the Northern Health Region, 70 in the Prairie Mountain Health region, 33 in the Interlake-Eastern health region and 29 in the Southern Health region.
A recent breakdown of cases by vaccination status can be viewed on an interactive chart on the government website.
As of midnight, there were 100 adult patients — those receiving both COVID and non-COVID care — in Manitoba ICUs. That's an increase of seven from Wednesday.
The critical care program's normal, pre-COVID baseline capacity was 72 patients.
Manitoba's five-day test-positivity rate slightly increased to 14.8 per cent on Friday, from 14 per cent on Thursday, the COVID-19 bulletin says.
Starting next week, provincial COVID-19 bulletins will be issued only on Thursdays. They have been released three times a week for the past several months, on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.
Daily data is released each weekday on the province's online dashboard.
New outbreaks have been declared at Actionmarguerite St. Vital (Winnipeg), Calvary Place (Winnipeg), Dr. Gendreau Personal Care Home (Ste. Rose du Lac) and Westview Lodge (Boissevain), the province said.
Outbreaks have been declared over at:
- Actionmarguerite St. Boniface in Winnipeg.
- Calvary Place in Winnipeg
- Concordia Hospital, N3 East, in Winnipeg.
- River Park Gardens in Winnipeg.
- Beacon Hill Lodge in Winnipeg.
- Meadowood Manor in Winnipeg.
- Saul and Claribel Simkin Centre in Winnipeg.
- Glenboro Personal Care Home in Glenboro.
In a quirk of timing, one outbreak at Calvary Place personal care home in Winnipeg ended just as another started, a provincial spokesperson said, so it appears in both lists.
As of Friday, 86.2 per cent of eligible Manitobans have at least one dose of a coronavirus vaccine, 81.9 per cent have two doses and 43.6 per cent have received their third shot, the provincial vaccine dashboard says.
The total number of doses administered in the province is now 2,830,568, with 547 scheduled to be given on Friday.
The last appointments at the regional vaccine site in Dauphin are scheduled for March 2. The region will continue to offer pop-up clinics after that time to support vaccine access, the province said.