Two more deaths related to COVID-19 variants of concern in Manitoba Thursday

WINNIPEG -

Health officials announced two more people have died due to COVID-19, both of which were linked to variants of concern.

The first death was a man in his 50s from Winnipeg linked to the Alpha variant and the second was a man in his 80s from the Southern Health Region connected to an unspecified variant.

Manitoba has reported 1,134 deaths related to COVID-19.

Officials also noted Manitoba had 106 new cases of COVID-19 on Thursday; However, two previously announced cases were removed due to a data correction.

There have been 55,692 cases since the start of the pandemic.

The five-day test positivity rate in Manitoba is 6.4 per cent and 6.7 per cent in Winnipeg.

Winnipeg also had the highest number of new cases with 64, followed by the Southern Health Region with 18. Of the remaining cases announced Thursday, 14 are from Northern Manitoba, nine came from the Interlake-Eastern region and one case was in the Prairie Mountain Health Region.

As of Thursday, Manitoba has 1,715 active cases of COVID-19 and 52,843 people have recovered.

Hospital numbers continue to be high in Manitoba as there are 109 Manitobans in hospital with active COVID-19. Including 28 in ICU.

There are another 91 people who are no longer infectious but still require care, including 24 in intensive care.

Manitoba also has 12 people in hospitals outside of the province; 11 in Ontario and one in Alberta.

On Wednesday, 2,037 tests were performed, bringing the total to 821,847.

Of all of the province's cases, 14,831 have been variants of concern.

The majority have been unspecified with 7,897, 6,477 are the B.1.1.7 variant, 201 are P.1, 165 are the B.1.617.2 variant and 67 are B.1.351.

There are 1,015 active variant cases and 142 people have died due to the variants.