Manitoba reports 1 COVID-19 death, 12 new variant cases

WINNIPEG — The province announced 12 new cases of COVID-19 variants in Manitoba on Thursday.

Of those cases, 11 are the B.1.1.7 variant first found in the United Kingdom—nine in Winnipeg and two in the Southern Health Region.

The other case was the B.1.3.5.1 variant which was discovered in South Africa and was detected in the Prairie Mountain Health Region.

There have been 63 cases of the B.1.1.7 variant and 13 of the B.1.3.5.1.

Manitoba also added one new death linked to COVID-19. It was a woman in her 60s from the Southern Health Region and she was connected to the outbreak at Portage District General Hospital.

The death toll is now 918.

Health officials also announced 91 new cases of COVID-19; however, two previously announced cases were removed due to a data correction.

Manitoba has had 33,085 cases since March 2020.

The five-day test positivity rate is 4.7 per cent in Manitoba and 3.6 per cent in Winnipeg.

The Northern Health Region had the highest number of new cases at 42, followed by Winnipeg with 33. Both the Prairie Mountain Health Region and the Southern Health Region had six cases and the Interlake-Eastern Health Region had four cases.

There are currently 1,089 active cases of COVID-19 and 31,078 people have recovered.

Manitoba has 60 people in hospital with active COVID-19; 11 of those are in intensive care.

There are another 86 people who are no longer infectious but still require care, including 12 people in ICU.

On Thursday, 2,473 tests were performed, bringing the total to 557,277 since February 2020.