WINNIPEG -- Manitoba's trend of low deaths related to COVID-19 continued on Thursday, while the number of cases saw a small increase.

In a news release on Thursday, the province said three more Manitobans had died due to COVID-19.

These deaths include a man in his 70s whose death has been linked to the outbreak at Southeast Personal Care Home in Winnipeg, a man in his 90s whose death has been linked to the outbreak at the St. Boniface Hospital unit B5, and a woman in her 70s from the Southern Health Region.

This brings the total number of deaths related to COVID-19 in Manitoba to 862.

Along with the deaths, the province reported 90 new cases.

The cases reported on Thursday include:

  • 13 cases in Interlake-Eastern Health Region;
  • eight cases in the Prairie Mountain Health Region;
  • three cases in the Southern Health–Santé Sud Health Region; and
  • 23 cases in the Winnipeg Health Region.

These bring the total number of cases in Manitoba to 30,507. The province's five-day test positivity rate dropped to 4.9 per cent on Thursday.

The five-day test positivity rate in Winnipeg is at 3.9 per cent.

While cases in the Northern Health Region are slowly declining, they are still much higher than the rest of the province. The region reported 43 new cases on Thursday, bringing the total number of active cases in the region to 727.

"We obviously saw a large spike in cases especially in some of the remote communities there and Thompson itself which isn't as remote," said Dr. Jazz Atwal, the deputy chief provincial public health officer.

Atwal said the province is seeing the cases start to trend down.

"We do feel like things are under better control within a lot of these locations."

He said while there may be some more cases in these communities yet to come, the numbers should continue to drop over the next few weeks.

The province has reported 1,582 active cases, and 28,063 recoveries.

There are 244 people in hospital with COVID-19 – including 152 people who are no longer infectious, but still need care.

Lanette Siragusa, the chief nursing officer with Shared Health, said there are 94 patients in total in intensive care, this includes 32 people with COVID-19.

Siragusa said the intensive care unit has been under 100 patients since Sunday. She said while this number is still above the normal capacity of 72 patients, it is going in the right direction.

There were 1,890 tests completed on Wednesday, bringing the total number of tests done since early February 2020 to 495,715.