News briefs for Thursday, September 15, 2022

Last week, 65 COVID-19 patients were hospitalized in Manitoba and seven COVID-19 deaths were detected.

The provincial government is recording a decrease in COVID-19 transmission, based on lower hospitalization and lab test numbers compared with the previous week, according to the most recent epidemiological report. The report was released today for the week of Sept. 4 to 10.

The province added a total of 107 hospitalizations to its retroactive tally last week, and retroactively added 19 deaths to the data.

There were 475 lab-confirmed COVID-19 cases from Sept. 4 to 10, compared with 622 the previous week, but only a select few Manitobans still have access to PCR lab tests, and rapid-antigen test results aren’t recorded or included in the provincial count.

A man in his 20s had a gun pointed at his head while he was beaten and stabbed in a suspected gang-related attack outside a Winnipeg beer vendor Tuesday night.

City police officers applied a chest seal patch to the victim’s wound when they found him bleeding profusely in the 600 block of Balmoral Street around 11:30 p.m.

The man was taken to hospital in unstable condition and later upgraded.

Police, who recovered a pellet gun, have charged two women, aged 29 and 34, and a 16-year-old boy with aggravated assault and other offences.

Dynacare lab workers in Winnipeg and Brandon have voted 99 per cent in favour of a strike mandate.

More than 300 employees, represented by the Manitoba Association of Health Care Professionals, have been without a contract since April 1.

Their wages were frozen in their last contract due to government legislation since repealed, the union said.

Nearly all laboratory tests done outside hospitals in Manitoba are carried out by Dynacare members, according to the MAHCP.