HSC, Portage la Prairie hospital units declare COVID outbreaks

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This article was published 03/11/2021 (1051 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Provincial health officials have declared two new COVID-19 outbreaks at health-care facilities in southern Manitoba as the province reported 154 new infections and two more deaths Thursday.

The new outbreaks are at the Health Sciences Centre on surgery unit GD2 and at the Portage District General Hospital on the medicine unit in Portage la Prairie.

The province reported four active cases among patients on the surgery unit at HSC. No case counts at the hospital in Portage were available Thursday afternoon.

Outbreaks were also declared at Fernwood Place, a seniors housing facility in Steinbach, and at Stony Mountain School in the Grades 5 and 6 class.

There have been eight cases connected to the outbreak at the school, including two staff. The class has been moved to remote learning and the school is now at restricted level on the pandemic-response system, the province said.

Of the new cases reported Thursday, 70 were in Southern Health, 33 were in Winnipeg, 21 were in the Northern Health region, 15 were in Interlake-Eastern and 15 were in Prairie Mountain Health.

Unvaccinated people accounted for 95 of the new cases. Seven infected people were partially vaccinated and 52 were fully immunized.

A man in his 40s from Southern Health and a man in his 80s from Southern Health are the latest Manitobans to die from the disease, raising the province’s death toll to 1,253.

The province also provided age and location details for three deaths reported earlier this week: a man in his 80s and a woman in her 70s, both from the Southern Health region, and a man in his 80s from Prairie Mountain Health.

The five-day test-positivity rate provincially was 4.9 per cent and 2.0 per cent in Winnipeg; 3,644 tests were performed Wednesday.

A total of 115 patients were being treated for COVID-19 in hospital, including 24 in intensive care. All 19 active COVID-19 cases in intensive care Thursday were in unvaccinated patients.

The province reported that public-health enforcement officers issued nine tickets and 40 warnings between Oct. 25 and 31.

One person received a $1,296 ticket for failing to self-isolate and eight others were cited for failing to wear a mask in an indoor public place.

Public health also said there was a possible COVID-19 exposure on Oct. 23 from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. at the Sikh Society of Manitoba (1244 Mollard Rd.) in Winnipeg.

— Staff