62 new COVID-19 cases, 1 death reported in Manitoba on Saturday
Latest death appears to be linked to coronavirus variant, more details expected on Monday
There are 62 new COVID-19 cases in Manitoba and one more person has died from the illness, the province's online coronavirus dashboard says.
The provincial five-day test positivity rate rose to 3.3 per cent, the dashboard says, up from three per cent on Friday.
Manitoba has now reported 1,171 deaths from the illness. The latest death appears to be linked to a coronavirus variant, with the province's online variant dashboard showing the total number of deaths related to variant strains also rose by one on Saturday.
The province is no longer issuing COVID-19 news releases on weekends. On Saturdays and Sundays, updates are available only through the province's online data portals, which provide fewer details.
That means information including ages and health regions of people who died from COVID-19 aren't available until the province's Monday news release.
There are now 103 Manitobans hospitalized after getting the illness, the dashboard says, down by three from Friday. Of those patients, 25 are in intensive care, up by one.
The province did 1,413 more COVID-19 tests on Friday, the dashboard says. That brings the total number of swabs done in Manitoba to 864,248.
Manitoba also reported 29 more COVID-19 cases have now been linked to more contagious coronavirus variants. The province's variant dashboard says 27 of those cases stem from still unspecified variants, while two are linked to the alpha (B.1.1.7) variant.
One case previously linked to the B.1.617 strain has been removed from the province's total.
As of Saturday, 65.2 per cent of eligible Manitobans had been fully vaccinated against COVID-19, the province's online vaccine dashboard says, while 78.4 per cent had at least one dose.
The RBC Convention Centre vaccination supersite in Winnipeg is now offering walk-in immunizations until the end of July, from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. daily. Both the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines are available, the province announced on Friday.
Vaccination appointments for other sites can be made online through the province's website, or by calling 1-844-626-8222.
Since the beginning of the pandemic, 57,417 people in Manitoba have tested positive for COVID-19, the dashboard says. To date, 55,695 are considered to have recovered and 551 cases are still deemed active.