Thirty-five more people have tested positive for COVID-19 in Manitoba as of Sunday, bringing the total number of active cases in the province to 182 — the highest since the beginning of the pandemic.
The previous peak in active cases was in early April, when there were at one point 163 people known to have the illness caused by the new coronavirus.
The update also marks the second time in four days Manitoba has recorded its second-highest tally of new cases. On Thursday, the province announced 30 — but that record was short-lived before Sunday’s update surpassed it.
The highest one-day increase in cases in Manitoba was on April 2, when 40 were announced.
Many of the cases announced Sunday appear to be linked to known clusters in Brandon and the Southern Health region, or to close contacts of a previously announced case, Chief Provincial Public Health Officer Dr. Brent Roussin said at a news conference Sunday afternoon.
Officials are considering all options to fight the apparent rise in cases in rural Manitoba, including more targeted restrictions in certain parts of the province, he said.
There is also a small number of cases that appear to be community spread in those regions, Roussin said, though he cautioned those numbers could be an overestimation.
“When we talk about these community-based transmission — or what we might term as non-epi-linked — cases, a lot of times it’s early in the investigation so we just have yet to link them to a known case or to a cluster or to travel,” he said.
