Manitoba pandemic death toll crosses 500

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This article was published 15/12/2020 (1936 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Manitoba has suffered more than 500 deaths due to COVID-19 thus far in the pandemic, as nine more seniors have succumbed to the disease.

On Tuesday, the province reported the deaths of nine more Manitobans; six were linked to an outbreak at a personal care home. So far, 508 people have died due to COVID-19 in the province.

The most recent fatalities include: a man in his 70s from Saul & Claribel Simkin Centre (Winnipeg); a woman in her 80s from Park Manor (Winnipeg); a woman in her 90s from Kin Place (Oakbank); a woman in her 90s from Fairview Home (Brandon); a woman in her 90s from Charleswood Care Centre (Winnipeg); and a man in his 90s from Holy Family Home (Winnipeg).

A Winnipeg man in his 70s and two Winnipeg men in their 80s also died of COVID-19, officials said Tuesday.

Meanwhile, Manitoba logged 272 new infections and the provincewide, five-day test positivity rate was 14.2 per cent; in Winnipeg, it was 13.4 per cent. Just 1,561 tests were processed at the labs Monday.

Of the new cases announced Tuesday, 130 were in the Winnipeg region, 53 in Northern Health, 49 in Prairie Mountain, 25 in Southern Health, and 15 in the Interlake-Eastern Health region.

Demand for testing continues to be low, said chief provincial public health officer Dr. Brent Roussin, adding there are few other significant respiratory diseases, other than COVID-19, circulating in the community at this time.

“It’s really all COVID, right now,” Roussin said, adding mostly symptomatic people are being tested at swab sites.

“The test positivity is going up. We certainly get concerned when we see a test positivity like that, because what we have to consider is that are we just missing a lot of cases out there. But we’re not seeing that translate into increasing hospitalizations over time.”

If absolute numbers came down with a corresponding drop in demand on health-care services, the province may consider reviewing and easing restrictions even if test positivity rates remain elevated, Roussin said.

However, public health officials said community transmission of the virus continues to account for about one-third of infections across the province and half of those in the capital.

In some cases, infections can’t be traced because people are not co-operating with public health investigators, said Dr. Jazz Atwal, Manitoba’s acting deputy chief public health officer.

“There’s some households that aren’t partaking within that public health investigation in a consistent manner, so there’s some hesitancy or reluctance to provide some information,” Atwal said.

“There are some individuals who have some other health conditions that prevents their ability to partake properly in a case or contact investigation, as well.”

As of Tuesday morning, there were 44 intensive care unit patients with active cases of COVID-19, and 31 active COVID-19 patients on ventilators.

A total of 389 people were hospitalized due to COVID-19, 311 with active infections.

The province reported outbreaks at Vita and District Transitional Care Centre (Vita) and Cedarwood Supporting Housing (Steinbach) are over.

— with files from Katie May

danielle.dasilva@freepress.mb.ca