Manitoba reports jump in COVID-19 deaths, hospitalizations as case counts continue precipitous climb

Manitoba reported a jump in deaths and hospitalizations linked to COVID-19 on Thursday, as case counts continue to skyrocket in the province.

Six more people have died after contracting the illness: two each in the Interlake-Eastern, Southern and Winnipeg health regions, the province's online coronavirus dashboard says. That brings the number of COVID-19 deaths reported in Manitoba to 1,408.

Meanwhile, there are 11 more people in hospital with the illness, for a total of 263, the dashboard says. That's an increase of over 100 since the beginning of last week, when there were 158.

Of the patients in hospital, 33 are in intensive care, up three since Wednesday. They make up just over one-third of the 95 ICU patients in Manitoba as of midnight, said a spokesperson for Shared Health, which oversees health-care delivery in the province.

Before the pandemic started, Manitoba's critical care program had a baseline capacity of 72 patients, the spokesperson said.

Manitoba also reported a record 2,548 new confirmed cases of the illness on Thursday, with 1,503 of them in the Winnipeg health region, the dashboard says.

There are also 366 cases in the Prairie Mountain Health region, 277 in the Southern Health region, 245 in the Interlake-Eastern health region and 157 in the Northern Health Region.

But those numbers likely represent only a fraction of infections, as the highly contagious Omicron coronavirus variant has caused a spike in cases that's overwhelmed the province's testing capacity. As of Wednesday, there was a backlog of about 6,800 swabs from provincial test sites that needed to be processed.

That means daily case counts are no longer the most accurate reflection of the impact of COVID-19 in the province, because many cases aren't getting reported.

Dr. Jazz Atwal, Manitoba's deputy chief public health officer, said Wednesday that the true number of cases in the province is likely as high as eight to 10 times what's reported each day. With the previously predominant Delta variant, the province likely missed four cases for every infection that was reported, he said.

While hospitalizations and intensive care unit numbers are now a better reflection of the pandemic's effect on Manitobans and the province's health-care system, work is being done to make those numbers more accurate, Atwal said.

That's because the current hospitalization number the province reports includes people who were already in the hospital for another reason when they tested positive for COVID-19, he said.

"So we're going to be teasing that information out," Atwal said.

Last week, Shared Health Chief Nursing Officer Lanette Siragusa said while the magnitude of the increase in hospitalized COVID-19 patients is significant, the impact on intensive care units had so far been relatively stable.

Manitoba's five-day test positivity rate climbed to 43.5 per cent on Thursday, up from 40.3 per cent on Wednesday.

There were 6,162 tests completed.

Manitoba also reported 773 more COVID-19 cases linked to schools across the province, the online schools dashboard says in its first update in a week.

Of those cases, 562 are among students and 211 are among staff, the dashboard says. Forty more schools have reported at least one case of the illness, for a total of 551.

That update comes days after Premier Heather Stefanson announced most students in Manitoba will start their return to school with a week of remote learning after the extended holiday break ends on Monday.

Information about facilities with ongoing COVID-19 outbreaks is available on the province's website, as is a breakdown of the latest cases and hospitalizations by vaccination status.