Manitoba records three deaths Friday all linked to variants of concern

WINNIPEG -

Manitoba health officials announced three new deaths in the province on Friday.

All three deaths are linked to variants of concern.

The deaths include two women in their 60s, one from the Prairie Mountain Health Region and the other from the Winnipeg Health Region, and are both connected to the B.1.1.7 variant.

The other death was a man in his 80s from the Southern Health Region linked to an unspecified variant.

This brings the death toll to 1,170.

Manitoba also added 41 new cases, however, four previously announced cases were removed due to a data correction.

The Interlake-Eastern Health Region had the highest number of new cases with 19, followed by Winnipeg with 13. Four cases are from the Southern Health Region, three are from the Prairie Mountain Health Region and two are from the Northern Health Region.

Manitoba's five-day test positivity rate is three per cent and in Winnipeg it is 2.1 per cent.

There have been 57,359 cases of COVID-19 since March 2020.

There are 537 active cases in Manitoba and 55,652 people who have recovered.

Manitoba has 106 people hospitalized, 28 of which have active COVID-19. There are also 24 people in the ICU, eight with active COVID.

On Thursday, 1,496 tests were completed, bringing the total to 862.833 since February 2020.

With the three new deaths, there have been 174 deaths linked to variants of concern in Manitoba.

The province has had 16,455 variant cases, 285 of which are still active.

The majority of variant cases continue to be unspecified with 8,442, followed by the Alpha (B.1.1.7.) variant with 7,086. Third on the list is the Delta (B.1.617.2) variant with 596.