34 more patients in Manitoba hospitals with COVID-19 as of Friday

There are 34 more COVID-19 patients in hospital in Manitoba on Friday, the province says in a news release.

The overnight increase brings the total number of people hospitalized with the illness to 297.

That includes 34 people in intensive care units, the release said, up one since Thursday.

Patients with COVID-19 make up more than a third of the 96 total ICU patients in the province, a spokesperson for Shared Health, which oversees health-care delivery in Manitoba, said in an email.

Before the pandemic, the critical care program's capacity was 72 patients.

Manitoba reported 3,265 more confirmed cases of COVID-19, another record for the province, though the true number of infections is likely eight to 10 times higher than what is reported each day, Dr. Jazz Atwal, the province's deputy chief public health officer, said on Wednesday.

With the highly contagious Omicron coronavirus variant causing a spike in cases that's overwhelmed Manitoba's testing capacity, many cases aren't being reported, so daily case counts are no longer the most accurate reflection of the impact of COVID-19 in the province.

Case counts are expected to continue to increase as the province works through a testing backlog of about 6,000 samples, the release said.

Just under two-thirds of the cases reported Friday — 2,168 — are in the Winnipeg health region. There are also 378 in the Southern Health region, 285 in the Prairie Mountain Health region, 264 in the Interlake-Eastern health region and 170 in the Northern Health Region.

There were 588 cases — little under 20 per cent — among people not fully vaccinated against COVID-19, the release said.

Over the last six weeks, half the people admitted to hospital with the illness, 77 per cent of those who ended up in intensive care and 63 per cent of those who died were not fully immunized, the province's online vaccination status dashboard says.

Manitoba's five-day test positivity rate rose to 44.4 per cent, the release said, up from 43.5 per cent on Thursday. In Winnipeg, that rate is now 52.6 per cent, up from 48 per cent when it was last updated, on Wednesday.

Testing capacity

The province is currently only doing PCR tests on certain groups of people because of capacity problems.

Those groups include hospital patients with symptoms, people who can't do at-home tests (like children), people who might qualify for monoclonal antibody treatment and need a PCR test to be eligible and other high-risk people.

PCR tests are also still being used in Manitoba to confirm rapid tests that came back positive for people in certain roles, including health-care workers, education and child-care staff and grade-school students.

The province completed 5,389 more COVID-19 tests on Thursday, the release said.

No new deaths linked to the illness were announced on Friday, but more details about six deaths reported a day earlier on the province's dashboard have been announced.

The deaths include two men in their 50s from the Interlake-Eastern health region, with one who died after getting an unspecified coronavirus variant, the release said.

Two men in their 60s from the Southern Health region also died, with one having contracted the Delta variant.

The other two deaths reported on Thursday were a man and a woman, both in their 80s and from the Winnipeg health region, the release said.

Outbreaks declared

Eleven more COVID-19 outbreaks have been declared at care homes in parts of southern Manitoba, the release said.

The places with new outbreaks are:

• Poseidon Care Centre in Winnipeg.
• Golden West Centennial Lodge in Winnipeg.
• Convalescent Home of Winnipeg.
• Kildonan Personal Care Centre in Winnipeg.
• River Park Gardens personal care home in Winnipeg.
• Concordia Place personal care home in Winnipeg.
• Lions Manor in Winnipeg.
• Tudor House personal care home in Selkirk.
• Sandy Lake personal care home in Sandy Lake.
• Fairview personal care home in Brandon.
• Hillcrest Place personal care home in Brandon.