Report of COVID-19 death of Manitoban in his 20s was an error, province says
CBC News | Posted: November 25, 2020 8:01 PM | Last Updated: November 25, 2020
Death reported in error last week; man does have COVID-19, but is still alive, Dr. Brent Roussin says
The province of Manitoba says a report that a man in his 20s died from COVID-19 last week was an error, and the man is actually still alive.
The death was reported last Friday, and would have been the youngest person in Manitoba to die from the illness since the pandemic began.
However, on Wednesday, the death was moved from the province's case list.
Chief Provincial Public Health Officer Dr. Brent Roussin said the mistaken report was due to a data-entry error. He said the man in his 20s does have COVID-19, but he is still alive and currently in isolation.
"I certainly apologize for any confusion that that had caused," Roussin said at Wednesday's COVID-19 media update.
"We have a lot of safeguards on the data and reviewing of that data, so I remain confident in the numbers that we receive. And we have a process to review and correct when needed."
Watch | Dr. Brent Roussin explains where error came from:
The province announced the COVID-19-related deaths of two other people under 40 last week — a woman in her 30s from the Interlake-Eastern health region, and a man in his 30s from the Winnipeg health region.
On Wednesday, 349 new COVID-19 cases were reported in Manitoba. Nine more people have died of the illness, the province said, bringing the total number of COVID-19 deaths in Manitoba to 256.