Manitoba has another jump in COVID-19 cases with 162 Wednesday; two new deaths

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WINNIPEG — Manitoba saw another spike in COVID-19 cases Wednesday as the province recorded 162 new cases.

This brings the total to 66,009 since March 2020, and there are currently 1,452 active cases.

The majority of the new cases are among unvaccinated Manitobans with 94, followed by 63 fully vaccinated individuals and five partially vaccinated people.

The Southern Health Region had the highest number of new cases with 57, followed by Winnipeg with 46. The Prairie Mountain Health Region had 27 cases, and the Northern and Interlake-Eastern Health Regions had 16 cases each.

Manitoba's five-day test positivity rate dropped slightly to 5.7 per cent.

The province also added two new deaths, bringing the total to 1,276.

In hospitals, 152 Manitobans are requiring care for COVID-19, 111 of those cases are still infectious. In ICU, there are 30 patients, 24 of which have active COVID.

Half of the active COVID cases in hospital, 55 patients, are unvaccinated, while 51 are fully vaccinated and five have received at least one dose.

In the ICU, 19 people are unvaccinated and five are fully vaccinated.

Dr. Brent Roussin, the chief provincial public health officer, was asked if numbers continue to trend upward would more restrictions be possible.

"We're certainly approaching a level of restrictions that limits the interactions between the unvaccinated," said Roussin. "If we see numbers climbing and we see that strain on the health-care system, we always have to consider doing more."

He noted new restrictions wouldn't be necessary if people are able to buy into the current restrictions and they practice the fundamentals.

"We can see that transmission decreasing, we can break up many of these transmission chains if we get buy in for what we ever have right now."

Roussin was also asked about the vaccine passport that is currently in place and what would need to happen in the province for it to be rolled back.

Again he noted that transmission would need to be lower and officials would have to see that the health-care system wouldn't be overwhelmed.

"Right now we see with the level of vaccine we have, with the level of transmission that is ongoing right now, we still have that risk. So we need to ensure we have these restrictions in place, including the proof of vaccine requirements."

He added there is no specific benchmark for when these orders and passports could be lifted.

On Tuesday, 2,811 tests were completed, bringing the total to 1,137,974 since February 2020.