164 new COVID-19 cases, 2 deaths reported in Manitoba on Tuesday

Manitoba reports 164 new COVID-19 cases and two deaths on Tuesday.

The Winnipeg health region has the largest share of new cases with 73. The Southern Health region is next with 36.

The Northern Health Region has 28, the Prairie Mountain Health region has 17 and the Interlake-Eastern health region has 10.

The Winnipeg and Interlake-Eastern regions recorded one death each.

Specific information about the latest deaths — sex, age, links to outbreaks or virus variants — is not yet available. The Manitoba government no longer holds news conferences or sends news releases on Tuesdays to update case numbers, although some figures are available online. 

The total number of deaths in Manitoba since the pandemic started is now 1,355. 

As of Tuesday, 135 Manitobans are hospitalized with COVID-19, which is a drop of seven from Monday. Of those, 34 are in intensive care units, which is unchanged from Monday.

The province's five-day test positivity rate increased to six per cent from 5.7 per cent on Monday. There is no update on the rate for Winnipeg, which was at 3.7 per cent on Monday.

The seven-day average daily case count in Manitoba has risen to 174. That's a new high for the fourth wave.

Of the 164 cases reported Tuesday, 61 (37 per cent) are in people who are not vaccinated against COVID-19 and 15 (nine per cent) are in people who were partially vaccinated. The other 88 (54 per cent) are in fully vaccinated people.

However, when it comes to severity of symptoms, the caseload shifts toward those who are unvaccinated.

Among people hospitalized with active COVID-19, 64 per cent are unvaccinated and 32 per cent are fully vaccinated.

And of the patients being treated for active COVID-19 in intensive care, 92 per cent are unvaccinated, four per cent are partly vaccinated and four per cent are fully vaccinated.

As of midnight, there were 103 patients in intensive care units across Manitoba. That includes patients receiving both COVID and non-COVID care.

The critical care program's pre-COVID baseline capacity was 72 patients.

School cases

The total number of COVID-19 cases linked to schools since classes started on Sept. 7 is now 1,983, the province's dashboard on school data says.

That's an increase of 160 since Thursday.

Of those, 1,698 are student cases and 285 are staff. There have been 416 schools that have reported one or more cases.

Within the last 14 days, the period in which cases are considered active, there have been 433 cases: 377 student cases and 56 staff cases across 170 schools. There are 817 schools in the province.

A map showing school-associated cases within the last 14 days can be seen here.

As of Tuesday, 83.7 per cent of eligible Manitobans have received one dose of a coronavirus vaccine and 78 per cent have both doses, the provincial vaccine dashboard says.

Eligibility for first and second doses now includes anyone age five or older.

The total number of doses administered in the province is now at 2,369,451.