Manitoba reports record spike of more than 540 new COVID-19 cases on Monday

Dr. Brent Roussin, Manitoba chief public health officer, speaks during the province's latest COVID-19 update at the Manitoba legislature in Winnipeg Saturday, March 28, 2020. THE CANADIAN PRESS/John Woods

WINNIPEG — Manitoba has once again set a record of COVID-19 cases, with more than 540 people testing positive for COVID-19 as of Monday morning.

Dr. Brent Roussin, the chief provincial public health officer, reported 546 new cases of COVID-19 on Monday, though three cases were removed from the total due to an error. This is the highest single-day spike of cases the province has seen yet.

The majority of the cases were reported in the Winnipeg region, which had 368 new cases as of Monday morning. The five-day test positivity rate in Winnipeg is now at 13.8 per cent.

The Southern Health region also reported a significant spike in cases, with 118 more cases.

The other cases include:

The new cases bring Manitoba's total since March to 14,087 and raises the five-day test positivity rate to 14 per cent.

DEATHS SURGE IN PAST 23 DAYS IN MANITOBA

Along with the cases, Roussin reported seven more people had died of COVID-19.

These people include:

Since March, 236 Manitobans have died of COVID-19. Deaths caused by COVID-19 have been surging in recent weeks. Roussin said the past 23 days, 161 people have died due to the virus.

"It might be easy just to think of these as numbers, but we all know these are Manitobans. These are people who were loved, who are missed right now," Roussin said.

Hospitalizations also saw a jump as 296 people are now in hospital with COVID-19, 52 of whom are in the intensive care unit.

On Monday, 160 more Manitobans had recovered from COVID-19, bringing the total number of recoveries to 5,353. The number of active cases in Manitoba is reported to be 8,498.

TOP DOCTOR SEES SOME RESULTS OF RESTRICTIONS

This Thursday it will be two weeks – one full incubation cycle of the virus – since the entire province was placed under code red restrictions, which included closures of non-essential business and further restrictions on gathering sizes.

Roussin said health officials are starting to see some positive results from these restrictions.

"We have a fewer number of contacts per case right now, which can certainly be an early indicator that our restrictions are having their intended benefit," he said. "It is expected that that is going to translate into fewer cases in the next week or 10 days."

Roussin said three weeks ago, there was an average of seven contacts per case, which has gradually dropped to between four and two contacts in some cases.

"Certainly the trend is in the right direction."

He said the province is still at a critical point, once again urging Manitobans to stay home.

"We have these critical restrictions in place for a reason – we are seeing these numbers that we cannot sustain in our health care system," he said. "We need to bring these numbers down, and we need to act now to do so."