WINNIPEG -- In a surge never before seen in Manitoba, the province has announced 480 new cases of COVID-19.
A grim prediction made by Dr. Brent Roussin earlier this week has come true – Manitoba has hit more than 5,300 cases, with 480 new cases reported as of Friday morning, along with three new deaths. The five-day test positivity rate in Manitoba has spiked to 8.6 per cent on Friday.
The most recent deaths include a man in his 80s, a woman in her 80s, and a woman in her 90s. These people were all in the Winnipeg area, and their deaths are all linked to the Parkview Place outbreak. The total number of COVID-19-related deaths in Manitoba is now at 65.
Hospitalizations in Manitoba jumped to 104, with 19 people in intensive care. Roussin said these increasing numbers are putting a strain on the health care system.
The new cases announced on Friday include:
- 42 cases in the Interlake-Eastern health region;
- 25 cases in the Northern health region;
- 10 cases in the Prairie Mountain Health region;
- 94 cases in the Southern Health–Santé Sud health region; and
- Winnipeg alone saw 309 new cases as of Friday, with 79 people in hospital and 11 in ICU.
There have been 43 deaths reported in the city. The five-day test positivity rate in Winnipeg climbed to 9.7 per cent.
This has prompted Roussin to place the Winnipeg Metropolitan Region into the critical or red level of the pandemic response system, with further restrictions coming into effect this Monday, Nov. 2.
“Now is that time to definitely act – it is not the time to panic,” Roussin said. “Even though these numbers seem daunting right now, we know exactly what we can and need to do, because we’ve done it before.”
The spike in cases on Friday was in part due to a backlog in reporting, with two cases from last Sunday, four cases from Monday, 44 cases from Tuesday, 193 cases from Wednesday, and 237 cases identified as of Thursday.
Since March, Manitoba has seen a total of 5,374 cases.
The restrictions for all regions of Manitoba can be found below.
