WINNIPEG -- The province of Manitoba is announcing 32 new cases of COVID-19 as of Friday morning, as well as a drop in the current five-day test positivity rate.

In a bulletin released Friday, Manitoba health officials said the new cases have brought the total number of active cases in the province to 418 as 9:30 a.m.

The new cases announced on Friday include:

  • one new case in the Interlake-Eastern Regional Health Authority;
  • 18 new cases in the Prairie Mountain Health region;
  • six new cases in Southern Health-Santé Sud; and
  • seven cases in the Winnipeg health region.

The province said preliminary investigations show that 14 of these cases are close-contacts to previously announced cases.

The current five-day COVID-19 test positivity rate is 2.3 per cent, a drop from Thursday's announcement, which said the test positivity rate was 3 per cent.

On Thursday, the province said the test positivity rate is affected by positive results related to targeted testing in known clusters

So far 664 people have recovered from COVID-19. There are five people in hospital as of Friday, one of whom is in intensive care.

 

No new deaths were reported as of Friday, leaving the death toll at 14.

The total number of lab-confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Manitoba is now 1,096.

Another 1,252 laboratory tests were completed on Thursday, bringing the total number of tests completed in the province since February to 132,085.

WHERE THE MOST CASES OF COVID-19 ARE IN MANITOBA

As of Friday, the Prairie Mountain Health Region continued to have the highest number of COVID-19 cases in Manitoba, with 223 active cases reported.

 

The majority of these cases are still in the Brandon district which has 134 active cases.

Not including Brandon, the areas in Manitoba with most cases of COVID-19 include:

  • Winnipeg, with 103 active cases;
  • Assesippi, with 54 active cases;
  • Niverville/Ritchot, with 17 active cases; and
  • Whitemud, with 10 active cases;

Seven new cases were announced in the Winnipeg district on Friday. Dr. Brent Roussin, the chief provincial public health officer, previously said a lot of cases in the area are linked to previously announced cases. He said on Thursday about 20 per cent of the cases in Winnipeg have been identified as community-based transmission.