Province reports 368 new COVID cases, 12 deaths

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This article was published 03/12/2020 (1935 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

With public health officials gaining ground on key measures — contact tracing and expanded screening for COVID-19 — ongoing strains on laboratory resources are limiting Manitoba’s options to control the spread of the novel coronavirus.

For the past two months, demand for COVID-19 tests at screening sites around the province has been well-below capacity, despite rising community transmission and a five-day test positivity rate at record levels.

On Thursday, chief provincial public health officer Dr. Brent Roussin reported 368 new cases of COVID-19 across Manitoba, 12 more pandemic deaths, and a five-day test positivity rate of 13.1 per cent.

In Winnipeg, it reached a record 14.9 per cent, as the region reported 211 new cases.

“We’re certainly not where we want to be. That’s no doubt. We want these numbers to be much lower than they are,” Roussin said. “We wanted this test-positivity to come down… It puts a lot of strain on our lab services because it makes pooling much more difficult.”

Community transmission continues to account for half of new cases in Winnipeg, he said. “Over the last seven days, we had roughly about 500 cases that were not linked.”

According to the Manitoba government, it can sustain 3,500 tests a day at its combined laboratory facilities (Cadham, Dynacare and Shared Health).

A spokesperson for Dynacare said it can process up to 2,000 tests daily at its facility, and is in operation 24-7. Any samples it receives above its daily limit is sent out-of-province for processing.

In the past seven days, Manitoba has trended below the maximum number of lab tests it can perform on a daily basis. On Wednesday, 2,913 tests were processed.

One way to lower the test positivity rate is to open up testing to more people and capture a larger portion of the population. Expanded testing could also offer greater insight into who is infected with the virus and where it is spreading, infectious diseases experts argue.

Despite having ample space at swab sites and some flexibility at the labs, Roussin said public health will not be changing its testing criteria or conducting targeted surveillance testing in the immediate future.

“Definitely, there’s a limitation,” Roussin said. “There’s worldwide demands on things like the reagent, so we’re limited on the overall testing capacity, in line with pretty much every other jurisdiction.

“But now there’s more and more access to rapid testing, and so we’re going to find ways to incorporate that now, into our testing strategy.”

In addition, the province is also handcuffed by how much reagent it is allocated by the manufacturer, he said.

“So whether you have one lab doing it, or 12 labs doing it, you’re going to get your provincial allocation of that reagent. So we are looking at various ways to try to broaden the scope, but that’s the kind of thing we’re dealing with.”

Public health continues to consider surveillance and asymptomatic testing in vulnerable settings, such as personal care homes and schools, but nothing has been decided yet, he said.

Meanwhile, pilot programs for rapid testing of symptomatic people are in development. On Thursday, the province announced a rapid testing pilot for teachers in the Winnipeg region to be rolled out in January.

Currently, Roussin said, people are waiting an average of 55 hours to receive the result of a routine COVID-19 test.

On Thursday, the province’s top doctor reported the deaths of 12 more Manitobans.

Five were from Winnipeg (a man in his 70s, a woman in her 80s, two women in their 90s, a man in his 90s), and five were from Southern Health region (a man in his 50s, two women in their 80s, a man in his 90s, a woman in her 90s).

One was from the Northern Health region (a man in his 50s). One was from Interlake-Eastern: a man in his 30s — among the youngest to die from COVID-19.

The total number of pandemic deaths in Manitoba is now 353.

Roussin said a data entry error resulted in him reporting the death of a Winnipeg woman in her 60s that had not occurred, and apologized for the mistake.

“We have our systems in place to be able to pick up on errors like this, and so I certainly remain confident in the information I receive and report,” he said.

A new record was also set at the province’s hospitals, with 357 COVID-19 patients in care, including 52 in ICUs.

The daycare outbreak at Carpathia Children’s Centre Inc. announced Wednesday, consists of five people, acting director Slavica Maric confirmed to the Free Press. The centre plans to reopen its doors Dec. 11.

Outbreaks have been declared over at the Victoria General Hospital units 5 North and 5 South, and Oscar’s Place, a homeless shelter in The Pas.

— with files from Malak Abas and Michael Pereira

danielle.dasilva@freepress.mb.ca