WINNIPEG -- Another person has died in Manitoba related to a COVID-19 variant. The latest death was a man in his 50s from the Winnipeg area, according to the province’s update on Monday.

Health officials said the death was connected to the B.1.1.7 variant.

Since the start of the pandemic, 979 people have died in the province.

Manitoba also added another 251 cases on Monday and one previously announced case was removed. There have been 39,524 cases since March 2020.

The five-day test positivity rate is eight per cent in the province and 8.7 per cent in Winnipeg.

Dr. Brent Roussin, the chief provincial public health officer, said since the weekend, there have been over 800 cases.

"If we look at March compared to April, there's a 110 per cent increase in cases. Just comparing April, we saw 4,800 cases, (a) little over 4,800 cases compared to 4,100 cases in October 2020," said Roussin.

"So this is why we put stronger public health orders in last week, and this is why we're asking Manitobans to stay home."

Winnipeg's new case count continues to be the highest at 184. The Interlake-Eastern Health Region had 20 cases, 18 cases are from Southern Health, the Northern Health Region had 15 cases, while 14 cases came from Prairie Mountain Health.

There are 2,593 active cases and 35,952 people have recovered.

Hospital numbers are in the triple digits as 117 people have active cases COVID-19, including 32 people in ICU. Another 61 people are no longer infectious with COVID-19 but still require care, including 13 in intensive care.

Roussin said seeing the number of people in hospital is concerning.

"We know that that increasing demand on the health-care system, both ICU and medicine, puts a strain on the health-care system, then it compromises the ability to care for non-COVID patients as well. So we have to have, you know, quite a bit of concern about the health-care system capacity. So we're watching that very carefully."

On Sunday, 2,898 tests were completed, pushing the total to 670,783 since February 2020.

The variant case count is updated between Tuesday and Saturday.