COVID-19 outbreak declared at Manitoba care home

COVID-19 outbreak at Manitoba care home Health officials have announced a COVID-19 outbreak at a personal care home. CTV's Michael D'Alimonte reports.

WINNIPEG — Manitoba's top doctor has declared an outbreak of COVID-19 at a personal care home in the province.

On Monday, Dr. Brent Roussin, the chief provincial public health officer, said there were 38 new cases of COVID-19 identified in the province, including one new case at Bethesda Place, a care home in Steinbach, Man.

"An outbreak has been declared based on that one case and investigations continue," he said. "Certainly the care home responded quite quickly and quite appropriately to a symptomatic individual, they immediately had that person in isolation, they immediately isolated wings of that personal care home, and tested very early."

He said the province is investigating how the person may have caught the virus, and if there are any contacts. He said they don't have further details at this time to share.

Roussin said the province has declared the cases an outbreak due to the severity of the situation.

"Because of what we've seen in other jurisdictions on how quick this can transmit, that it is just an abundance of caution to declare an outbreak, where a lot of protocols are immediately put in place."

CTV News has reached out to Bethesda Place for further information.

MORE INFO ON COVID-19 CASES IN MANITOBA

The new cases announced in Manitoba on Monday include:

The province's current five-day test positivity rate is at 1.78 per cent, with 731 lab-confirmed and probable positive cases in the province since March. Roussin said four previously announced cases were removed.

There are currently 232 active cases in Manitoba and 490 recoveries. There are 11 people in hospital, three of whom are in intensive care.

There were 1,716 tests completed in the province on Sunday, bringing the total number of tests completed since early February to 115,963.

AN 'ENCLOSED CLUSTER' IDENTIFIED IN NIVERVILLE/RITCHOT

Roussin said the majority of COVID-19 cases announced on Monday in the Prairie Mountain Health and the Southern Health–Santé Sud regions are linked to known clusters.

He said the cluster of COVID-19 cases in Brandon currently sits at 64 cases. This had previously been reported as 67, but said after further investigation, Roussin said a few cases were not able to be linked directly to the cluster.

There are 56 cases linked to a "place of businesses" in Brandon, Roussin said. This is believed to be the Maple Leaf Foods processing plant. Roussin said there is still no evidence of workplace transmission.

There are 24 cases that are linked both to the Brandon cluster and the cases at the Brandon business.

Roussin said an "enclosed cluster" has been identified in the Niverville/Ritchot district. According to provincial data, there are currently 25 active cases in the area.

"We're not seeing community-based transmission in there," he said. "It's not widespread; it's not community-based transmission. It is a localized cluster."

THE AREAS IN MANITOBA WITH THE MOST COVID-19 CASES

According to data from the province, Brandon currently has 86 active COVID-19 cases – the highest number of active cases in the province. This is followed by Winnipeg, which has 59 active cases, and Niverville/Ritchot which has 25 active cases.

There are currently no active cases in the Northern health region.

This news conference comes after a weekend where Manitoba saw more than 56 new cases of the virus – 20 on Saturday and 36 on Sunday.

On Saturday, the province also reported another death related to COVID-19, bringing Manitoba’s total to nine. The province said the person who died was a man in his 80s from the Portage la Prairie health district who had been in intensive care.

Roussin said the man was hospitalized at the time of his death.

-with files from CTV's Kayla Rosen and Touria Izri