Manitoba posts highest daily COVID-19 case count since mid-June with 132 new cases

Manitoba reports 132 new COVID-19 cases and another death on Thursday.

That's the largest single-day caseload since June 19, when there were 151.

Of Thursday's total, 95 cases are in people who were not fully vaccinated (78 not at all, 17 partially), the province's dashboard says.

The Northern Health Region has 37 (26 not fully vaccinated), the Southern Health region has 33 (25 not fully vaccinated), the Winnipeg health region has 28 (19 not fully vaccinated), Prairie Mountain Health region has 24 (16 not fully vaccinated) and there are 10 new cases in the Interlake-Eastern health region (nine not fully vaccinated).

The death is a man in his 60s from the Winnipeg health region, linked to an unspecified variant of concern.

The province on Thursday also released details about a death on Wednesday, when no COVID-19 bulletin was released. That death was a man in his 100s from the Winnipeg health region, also linked to an unspecified variant of concern.

The total number of deaths in Manitoba since the pandemic began is now 1,215, including 209 due to variants of concern.

Due to the Thanksgiving holiday, there will be no bulletins or online data updates regarding COVID-19 on Monday.

Among people currently hospitalized with active COVID-19, 84 per cent are unvaccinated and 11 per cent are fully vaccinated.

Of the patients being treated for active COVID-19 in intensive care, 89 per cent are unvaccinated. There are no fully vaccinated patients in ICU.

The five-day COVID-19 test positivity rate is 3.4 per cent provincially and 1.5 per cent in Winnipeg.

There are 85 people currently in hospital due to the coronavirus (a drop of seven from Wednesday), including 15 in intensive care (a drop of two).

A total of 84 patients are in ICUs across the province for COVID-19 and all other reasons, a Shared Health spokesperson said in an email. The critical care program's normal pre-COVID baseline capacity was 72.

There have been 1,024,148 coronavirus lab tests completed since the pandemic began, including 4,000 on Wednesday alone.

The province also reported 173 newly identified variant of concern cases on its online variant dashboard. There is one additional case of the delta or B.1.617.2 variant, bringing the total number of delta cases to 1,472, while the rest of the increase is under unspecified variants of concern.

There have been 19,176 variant of concern cases reported since the pandemic began. On Thursday, the number of unspecified cases topped 10,000 to sit at 10,084.

Enforcement update

A total of 35 warnings and 19 tickets were issued for violations of the province's public health orders during the week of Sept. 27 to Oct. 3.

There were 10 businesses fined and four of them were fined twice for a total of 14 tickets and a sum of $61,296. Five of those business, accounting for seven tickets, are in Steinbach, one of the communities in southern Manitoba where vaccine uptake is below the provincial average.

As well, five $1,296 tickets were handed out to individuals for various offences and two $298 tickets to people for failing to wear a mask in an indoor public place.

Outbreaks

Two school-linked outbreaks have been declared, while there is also a concerning rise in case numbers on a northern First Nation, the province said in a Thursday news release.

Miniota School in the community of Miniota has gone into remote learning and moved to the red, or critical, level on the province's pandemic response system after cases were linked to four of the school's five classrooms.

Students won't return to the classroom until Oct. 18 at the earliest.

An outbreak has also been declared at Alonsa School, which has students from kindergarten to Grade 12. 

As of Thursday, there were at least seven cases linked to that school, the province's outbreaks website says. All were among students.

One class has been moved to the orange or restricted level on the pandemic response system.

Public health officials are also working with the chief and council of Mathias Colomb Cree Nation to address a growing number of cases there, a news release says. The provincial dashboard shows 73 active cases in that community.

The community has been moved to the critical red level on the pandemic response system, and public gatherings are no longer permitted.

Residents are required to only leave their residence for testing or medical care, or to send one person from a household for essential supplies. An exemption has been made for the hunting and fishing season and anyone who works in essential services.

Masks must be worn by anyone when outside.

Mathias Colomb is about 700 kilometres northwest of Winnipeg.