Death toll linked to COVID-19 climbs above 60 in Manitoba

WINNIPEG — Health officials announced on Wednesday that there are three new deaths linked to COVID-19.

The news was announced by Dr. Brent Roussin, the province's chief provincial public health officer, and Lanette Siragusa, the chief nursing officer for Shared Health.

One of the deaths was a man in his 40s from the Interlake-Eastern Health Region, a woman in her 80s from the same health region, linked to the Misericordia Place outbreak, and a man in his 80s from the Winnipeg area, and he was connected to the Victoria Hospital outbreak.

The death toll has now climbed to 61.

Officials have also announced 170 new cases of COVID-19 and said the test positivity rate in Manitoba 7.3 per cent.

Of the new cases, the most are from the Winnipeg Health Region with 117, 26 cases are from the Interlake-Eastern Health Region, 18 coming from the Southern Health Region, six from the Northern Health Region and three are from the Prairie Mountain Health Region.

One previous case has been removed because of a data error, meaning there is a total of 169 cases announced Wednesday, bringing the total to 4,701 since early March.

There are 2,334 active cases and 2,306 people have recovered from COVID-19.

Of those infected, 89 are in hospital, with 19 of them in intensive care.

On Tuesday, 3,437 tests were performed, bringing the total to 248,077 since early February.

It has also been announced that the outbreak at the St. Norbert personal care home has been declared over.

HAMMERING HOME THE MESSAGE

Roussin continued to bring up the message of staying home when you are sick and do not go to large gatherings or parties, noting Manitobans need to limit the number of people they come in contact with.

He mentioned many of the current cases can be linked to the Thanksgiving weekend.

"In one example, we have seven cases identified from attending just one dinner," said Roussin.

He also noted that when people are not following orders and going to large gatherings, they are sharing with others, and he used one item as an example.

"One recurrent example is vape pens."

Roussin wants Manitobans to take the information from what has happened over the previous weeks and apply it to Halloween.

He said everyone needs to understand their own risk with the event.

"If you're feeling well and feel like going out, if you respect the group size numbers, the physical distancing, wearing a mask, then do so by practicing those fundamentals."

Roussin said no one should be going to Halloween parties this year and instead people should find innovative ways to celebrate such as virtual parties.

"We've heard many reports of planned Halloween parties. We just can't have this now. We've seen this spike. A lot of it related to Thanksgiving," he said, adding the same will happen with Halloween if people don't listen.