Manitoba sees another day of double-digit deaths related to COVID-19

WINNIPEG — The death toll continues to climb in Manitoba as health officials announced 11 new deaths related to COVID-19.

Dr. Brent Roussin, Manitoba's chief provincial public health officer, and Lanette Siragusa, the chief nursing officer for Shared Health made the announcement Monday afternoon.

The youngest death announced was a man in his 30s from the Winnipeg area. Other deaths linked to the Winnipeg area include a woman in her 40s, a woman in her 70s who was connected to the outbreak unit GA3 at the Health Sciences Centre, a man in his 80s connected to the Charleswood Care Centre, another man in his 80s who was part of the Golden Links Lodge outbreak, and two women in their 90s, one who was linked to the St. Norbert Personal Care Home.

Two people were from the Prairie Mountain Health Region, a woman and man in their 80s both from the Fairview Personal Care Home.

The final two were from the Southern Health Region, a man in his 80s from the Villa Youville Personal Care Home outbreak and a man in his 90s linked to the Bridgepark Manor assisted living facility.

There have now been 312 deaths in the province since the start of the pandemic.

Siragusa said 247 people have died in Manitoba in November alone.

"Nearly 80 per cent of all the COVID deaths in Manitoba occurred in November," said Siragusa. "These people are more than statistics. They are parents and grandparents and aunts and uncles and brothers and sisters and now a child," she added, referencing the boy under the age of 10 who died that was announced on Sunday.

Roussin said Manitobans need to step up to stop the list of deaths from growing.

"I think we all know we can’t continue along these lines. We have to bring these numbers down. We can't continue to lose this many Manitobans," said Roussin.

He added Manitobans need to lower their contacts and stop interacting with people outside their household as much as possible.

"If we reduce the amount of contacts we have, those numbers have no choice but to drop.

"In the short term here, we have a circuit breaker in place. Our hospitals are overwhelmed, our health-care providers are telling us they are overwhelmed. We're asking Manitobans for a few weeks, to try and limit gatherings."

Officials also announced 343 new cases of COVID-19, however, officials removed one previous case due to a data error, which brings the total to 342.

There have been 16,825 cases since early March. The test positivity rate in Manitoba is 13.4 per cent and it is 13.7 per cent in Winnipeg.

Of the new cases, 207 are from the Winnipeg area, 53 are in the Southern Health Region, 46 in the Northern Health Region, 23 coming from the Interlake-Eastern Health Region, and 14 in the Prairie Mountain Health Region.

Manitoba has 9,260 active cases and 7,253 people have recovered from COVID-19.

There are 342 people in hospital, with 43 in intensive care.

On Sunday, 2,611 tests were completed, which brings the total to 355,081 since early February.