Recent case of COVID-19 contracted in community
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Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 15/07/2020 (1626 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
For the first time in several weeks, health officials have concluded that one case of COVID-19 in Manitoba was the result of community transmission.
Manitoba Hutterite colonies hit by COVID-19
Posted:
Two Manitoba Hutterite colonies have one resident each who has tested positive for COVID-19 in cases that can be traced to a funeral for three teenagers in Alberta.
Dr. Brent Roussin, the province’s chief public health officer, said Thursday the case — one of five reported Tuesday — involved a woman from the Southern Health region.
Before Tuesday, the province had gone two weeks without a new case. Prior to that, cases had been reported as either travel-related or close contacts of previous cases.
Roussin reported one new COVID-19 case on Thursday, bringing the total number in Manitoba since mid-March to 331. The new case is a man in his 30s from the Southern Health region. On Thursday, there were six active cases in the province.
Despite the new cases in July, the number of positive cases as a percentage of overall test numbers remains very low, Roussin said.
"It’s a better indicator of community transmission and the rate of transmission than just looking at overall numbers," he told a news conference.
The current five-day test positivity rate in Manitoba is 0.16 per cent, Roussin said. An additional 734 lab tests were completed on Wednesday, bringing the total since February to 73,042.
In Canada, positive test rates have been as high as eight per cent, although they’re now down to three to four per cent, he said. In some U.S. states, positive test rates have been as high as 20 or 30 per cent recently.
Roussin said any number below 1.5 per cent should be considered low.
"If we start seeing test-positivity rates over three per cent, then that would indicate to us that we’re likely seeing significant community-based transmission," he said.
Saskatchewan has experienced a recent increase in new COVID-19 cases.
Asked Thursday what it would take for Manitoba to re-introduce 14-day self-isolation requirements for people returning from the three western provinces, Roussin said he wouldn’t base any decisions on just a few days of escalating numbers.
The province will continue to monitor the situation out west, he said.
"If we need to reinstate those travel restrictions, we will," he said.
After consulting with public health officials, the government determined that the risk of virus transmission from life-jackets would be relatively low.
larry.kusch@freepress.mb.ca
Larry Kusch
Legislature reporter
Larry Kusch didn’t know what he wanted to do with his life until he attended a high school newspaper editor’s workshop in Regina in the summer of 1969 and listened to a university student speak glowingly about the journalism program at Carleton University in Ottawa.
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