WINNIPEG -- EDITOR’S NOTE: On Nov. 25, Dr. Brent Roussin, Manitoba’s chief provincial public health officer, said the man was incorrectly reported as deceased due to a data entry error. The man has COVID-19 and is in isolation.

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Manitoba health officials have announced more COVID-19 deaths, including the youngest reported person to die of COVID-19 yet in Manitoba.

For nearly four straight weeks, the province has reported multiple deaths caused by COVID-19 every day. Tuesday was no exception, with Dr. Brent Roussin, the chief provincial public health officer, reporting seven more deaths.

Among the deaths is a woman in her 30s from the Interlake-Eastern Region. She is the youngest person to die from COVID-19 according to provincial data. Roussin said this woman did have underlying health conditions.

The other deaths reported on Tuesday include:

  • A woman in her 70s from the Winnipeg health region;
  • A man in his 70s from the Winnipeg health region and linked to the outbreak at Victoria General Hospital;
  • Two men in their 80s from the Southern Health–Santé Sud health region;
  • Two women in their 90s from the Winnipeg health region and linked to the outbreak at the Saul and Claribel Simkin Centre.

With the deaths of these Manitobans, the virus’s death toll on the province is now 179.

Roussin said Manitobans know what to do to bring down the surging numbers of COVID-19 deaths and cases.

“We can act now, but we've got to act together,” Roussin said, once again urging Manitobans to stay home. “We have to protect ourselves, protect the people around us, protect our health care workers, protect the most vulnerable people in our society.”

The province also reported 270 new cases of COVID-19, though one case was removed from the total as it was an out-of-province case.

While Winnipeg continues to have the majority of cases, with 119 new cases reported on Tuesday with a test-positivity rate of 13.3 per cent, The Southern Health – Santé Sud region had the second-highest number of reported cases, with 106 new cases.

The other cases include:

  • 21 cases in the Interlake-Eastern health region;
  • 16 cases in the Northern health region;
  • eight cases in the Prairie Mountain Health region.

The new cases brings Manitoba’s total number of COVID-19 cases since March to 11,608. The province currently has a test-positivity rate of 13.6 per cent.

The province reported 240 people are in hospital with COVID-19, including 41 people who are in intensive care. Roussin said these hospitalizations include 30 people under the age of 50.

As of Tuesday, the province reported 168 more Manitobans had recovered from COVID-19, bringing the total number of recoveries in the province to 4,324.

Roussin said Manitobans need to make sure they are not stigmatizing individuals, as this may deter people from getting tested for COVID-19.

“It is ideal if you have symptoms to be tested as soon as possible because if we know that case then we can do the contact tracing,” Roussin said.

“People who are symptomatic who just won’t go for testing, we need you to stay at home for 10 days after symptom onset, because we can’t have symptomatic people walking around who may have COVID.”

There were 3,126 tests completed in Manitoba on Monday, bringing the total number of tests done since early February to 315,412.