WINNIPEG -- Manitoba has set a new record for the number of newly announced COVID-19 cases on Thursday.
The province announced 560 new cases in its daily bulletin. However, three previously announced cases were removed.
The previous single-day record was November 23, 2020, when 546 cases were announced.
There have been 43,700 cases since the start of the pandemic.
"It's what we feared and have been talking about for over a month now, that we would see a surge in cases and we certainly have," said Cynthia Carr, a Winnipeg-based epidemiologist.
Carr said she thinks the current shutdown will continue due to the record number and the recent high case counts.
"That's just not enough time given the incubation period of the virus to feel comfort that we're really on top of the downward trend," said Carr.
Winnipeggers that CTV News talked with said it was unfortunate seeing the high case count, with one noting the province should have shut down earlier.
Winnipeg Mayor Brian Bowman said the province needs to step up.
"It's disappointing to hear. We've got a lot of work to do as a community," said Bowman.
Manitoba also added another three deaths, all of which are linked to the B.1.1.7 variant.
The deaths were two women from the Prairie Mountain Health Region, one in her 60s and one in her 70s, the third death was a man in his 70s from the Winnipeg area.
There have been 1,002 deaths reported in Manitoba, and one previously announced death on May 12, a man in his 70s from the Interlake-Eastern Health Region, was removed due to a data correction.
Winnipeg continues to see the effects of COVID-19 as 431 of the new cases came from the city alone. The five-day test positivity rate for the city is 14.4 per cent.
The rest of Manitoba has a positivity rate of 12 per cent. The Interlake-Eastern Health Region has the next highest number of new cases with 38, the Prairie Mountain Health Region has 34 new cases, 30 new cases are from the Southern Health Region and 27 cases are from Northern Manitoba.
The active case count has passed 4,000 as there are 4,046 people with COVID-19 in Manitoba. The province said 38,652 people have recovered.
Variant of concern cases continue to make up a large portion of COVID-19 cases as almost half of the active cases are variants.
There are currently 1,974 active variant cases and there have been 5,210 total.
Of the total cases, 2,706 are the B.1.1.7 variant, 2,447 are unspecified, 36 are P.1 and 21 are B.1.351.
Manitoba has 183 people in hospital with COVID-19, 49 are in intensive care. There are also another 57 people who are no longer infectious but still require care, including 13 people in ICU.
