WINNIPEG -- The provincial government released its latest COVID-19 surveillance data Monday morning.

The data monitors the "intensity and geographic spread" of COVID-19 as well as the characteristics of people who get the disease and contacts, and the transmission in populations.

The latest data is from the week of Aug. 9 to Aug. 15.

In that week it showed there were 153 cases of COVID-19, which was up from the previous week's 107.

Testing volume also increased from week to week, going from around 1,500 tests on average to 1,600.

With the increase in tests, the positivity rate also saw a bit of an uptick climbing to 1.6 per cent from 1.1 per cent.

Looking at the cases, officials said around half of the 153 cases were from the Prairie Mountain Health Region and 30 per cent were from the Southern Health Region. The rest of the cases came from the Winnipeg Health Region.

Around 60 per cent of the cases were close contacts of known cases, while 10 per cent were related to travel.

SOURCE OF INFECTION

Of all the cases up to Aug. 15, the data showed that 28.2 per cent were related to travel, which dropped from 34.1 per cent.

However, close contact cases climbed from 44.9 per cent to 46.3 per cent.

The percentage of cases where it is unknown how they contracted COVID-19 also went up from 12 per cent to 17.4 per cent.

THE IMPACT ON HEALTHCARE WORKERS

Compared to the previous week, there were also seven more healthcare workers who got COVID-19, bringing the total to 49 since the pandemic started. Of those cases, 40 have recovered and returned to work.

More than half of those cases are from close contact with known cases.

Fourteen of the cases are nurses, 13 are healthcare aides, nine are physicians or physicians in training and the province listed the remaining 13 as "other."

The biggest difference compared to the previous data period was in healthcare aides, as previously there were only nine who had COVID-19. Nurses increased by one and those in the "other" category increased by two.

The province says healthcare workers are people who work in hospitals, long-term care settings, community health clinics and services, which includes agency staff, along with those who work in diagnostic and laboratory services.