Three new COVID-19 deaths added in Manitoba Thursday

The COVID-19 death toll in Manitoba grew again on Thursday, as the province announced three new deaths, pushing it to 1,685.

The deaths include two people from Winnipeg, a woman in her 30s and a woman in her 70s, while the third death was a woman in her 90s from the Prairie Mountain Health Region.

The province also provided more details on deaths from earlier in the week. On Wednesday, the two reported deaths included a woman in her 40s from the Prairie Mountain Health Region linked to an outbreak at Brandon Regional Health Centre, and a man in his 90s from Winnipeg connected to the outbreak at Tuxedo Villa personal care home.

Two deaths were from Sunday; a man in his 60s from the Northern Health Region and a woman in her 90s from Prairie Mountain Health linked to The Sherwood personal care home outbreak.

Four deaths happened Saturday; two men in the Southern Health Region, one in his 60s and one in his 80s, a woman in her 70s from Winnipeg and a man in his 90s from Prairie Mountain Health.

Looking at COVID-19 hospital numbers, there are 459 patients requiring care, including 29 people in the ICU.

Health officials said as of March 2 there were 139 hospitalizations, which is a 23.6 per cent decrease in patients from the previous week. There were 13 new ICU cases, which was an 18.2 per cent decrease from the previous week.

Manitoba added 165 new cases of COVID, bringing the active case count to 6,968 but health officials have said case counts are likely higher as at home rapid tests are not counted toward the total.

The five-day test positivity rate is 12.5 per cent.

On the vaccine front, 86.2 per cent of eligible Manitobans have received one dose, 82.1 per cent have two doses and 43.9 have had three shots.

The province said those are not fully vaccinated compared to people with three doses are five times as likely to be hospitalized with COVID, six times as likely to be admitted to the ICU and seven times as likely to die with COVID.