There are 75 new COVID-19 cases in Manitoba on Friday, the province says in a news release, a drop after three days of record-breaking, triple-digit increases.
The Winnipeg health region has 63 new cases, the release says. There are seven in the Interlake-Eastern health region, two each in the Northern and Southern health regions and one in the Prairie Mountain Health region, the release says.
Manitoba’s five-day test positivity rate — a rolling average of the COVID-19 tests that come back positive — reached a new high of 5.2 per cent, up from 4.9 per cent on Thursday.
There are 25 people hospitalized with the illness caused by the novel coronavirus in Manitoba, the release says, including five in intensive care.
On Thursday, Manitoba announced 173 new cases of COVID-19. That was the third consecutive day the province broke its record for the highest single-day increase in confirmed cases.
There have now been 3,173 cases of COVID-19 identified in Manitoba, the release says. Of those, 1,553 are listed as recovered and 1,582 are considered active — though that number is skewed because of a backlog in cases that public health officials need to follow up on.
Thirty-eight people in Manitoba have died of COVID-19, including 11 in the past week.
Manitoba’s most recent fatalities linked to the coronavirus include the first involving a First Nations person reported in the province.
The most recent deaths also include two men in their 40s — the youngest in the province to die of COVID-19 — and several residents of Winnipeg’s Parkview Place personal care home.
The site is fighting the province’s largest, deadliest COVID-19 outbreak in a long-term care facility to date, with nine deaths and 89 infections.
Dr. Brent Roussin, Manitoba’s chief public health officer, is scheduled to speak at a news conference at 2 p.m. on Friday.
On Thursday, he warned that more restrictions are coming for the Winnipeg region as cases in the area continue to rise.
Another 2,174 COVID-19 tests were completed on Thursday, the release says, bringing the total number done in Manitoba since early February to 220,052.
