‘Sobering numbers’: 474 new COVID-19 cases, nine deaths in Manitoba Thursday

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This article was published 11/11/2020 (1463 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Manitoba is poised to surpass 10,000 total COVID-19 cases, as the province reported 474 new infections and the pandemic deaths of nine more people.

“These are, of course, sobering numbers,” chief provincial public health officer Dr. Brent Roussin said Thursday — the first day of provincewide critical (red) pandemic restrictions. “We’re announcing more than 2,500 cases in one week, and more than 20 deaths in three days.”

The total number of cases reported in Manitoba since March reached 9,782, with 6,030 considered to be active, though there is a backlog in reporting recoveries. (Roussin said the number of active cases is closer to 3,200.)

Of the nine deaths reported, seven were linked to outbreaks at personal care homes and other health-care settings.

In Winnipeg, a man in his 60s connected to Parkview Place care home, three men in their 80s and a woman in her 80s connected to Maples care home, and a woman in her 90s linked to Holy Family Home died after becoming infected with the novel coronavirus.

A Winnipeg woman in her 50s and a Winnipeg woman in her 70s also died of COVID-19.

A man in his 80s, linked to an outbreak at Bethesda Regional Health Centre in Steinbach, has also died, officials said.

According to the province, 132 Manitobans have died from COVID-19 thus far.

On Thursday, 227 people were in hospital with COVID-19, including 34 in intensive care — the greatest number of such hospitalizations the province has reported since the pandemic began.

Of the 474 new cases, the Winnipeg health region reported the bulk, at 315; Southern Health had 94; Interlake-Eastern had 26; Northern region had 20; and Prairie Mountain had 19.

Broken down by age, 107 new cases were reported in people 20-29 years old, 79 cases in ages 30-39, 65 in 40-49, and 87 under the age of 20. People over 50 years old accounted for 136 new cases.

Roussin said the five-day test positivity rate for the province hit 11 per cent; within Winnipeg it was 11.4 per cent.

New cases continue to be traced to exposures prior to the introduction of critical-red restrictions in the Winnipeg metro region, Roussin said.

“A large proportion of that we can’t epi-link; we can’t necessarily say where it was acquired from. So it’s difficult to know. That’s why we have widespread measures in place,” Roussin said.

He noted there is no significant backlog in contact tracing and the Canadian Red Cross has provided additional people to assist in managing the high caseload. More resources are to be added in coming days, he added.

“You can see that on days like this with our capacity, we are reaching that ability to be able to handle these type of case numbers, although we don’t want to on a sustained basis,” Roussin said.

The province declared an outbreak at River East care home in Winnipeg. No details were shared by officials; a request for comment from the operator, Extendicare, was not returned by deadline.

As of Thursday, 28 long-term care facilities in the Winnipeg health region were battling outbreaks of COVID-19.

The deadliest have been those at Parkview Place and Maples, with 23 and 18 confirmed COVID-19 deaths, respectively.

Meanwhile, a spokesperson for Shared Health confirmed a patient at Winnipeg’s Health Sciences Centre, connected to an outbreak in one of its medicine units, has died from the disease caused by the novel coronavirus.

Since an outbreak was declared Nov. 6, 16 patients on HSC Unit GA4 have tested positive. Twelve staff have also tested positive.

No new cases Thursday were connected to the outbreak at St. Boniface Hospital in two of its medicine units.

At Victoria General Hospital, one more case has been connected to the outbreak in two of its medicine units.

The province ran 3,717 lab tests Wednesday, bringing the total number of kits completed since early February to 300,169.

danielle.dasilva@freepress.mb.ca

Danielle Da Silva
Reporter

Danielle Da Silva is a general assignment reporter.

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