Nine more COVID-19 deaths in Manitoba inch province closer to grim milestone

Nine more COVID-19 deaths in Manitoba Manitoba reports nine new COVID-19 deaths on Monday, bringing the total death toll to 499.

WINNIPEG — The province has reported nine more deaths related to COVID-19, inching the total number of deaths closer to 500.

The most recent deaths reported as of Monday morning range from people in their 40s to people in their 90s. All but one of them were in the Winnipeg region, with the majority connected to personal care home outbreaks.

More information about these deaths can be found at the bottom of this article.

This brings the total number of deaths related to COVID-19 in Manitoba to 499.

The province also reported 241 cases of COVID-19 as of Monday morning, bringing the total number of cases in the province to 21,264.

The current five-day test positivity rate in the province is 13.6 per cent.

Most of these cases were reported in the Winnipeg health region, which had 158 new cases on Monday and a test positivity rate of 13 per cent.

The other cases reported on Monday include:

More than 14,900 people have recovered from the virus in Manitoba, with active cases reported to be 5,791. Dr. Brent Roussin, the chief provincial public health officer, said the number of active cases is likely lower due to a backlog in reporting.

DOZENS OF HEALTH-CARE WORKERS TEST POSITIVE IN PAST WEEK

Shared Health's Chief Nursing Officer Lanette Siragusa said the health-care system continues to be strained.

She said Public Health has reported 16 outbreaks in 10 hospitals across the province, as well as outbreaks in 49 Manitoba personal care homes. As of Monday morning, 303 people were in hospital, including 39 people in intensive care due to COVID-19.

This data does not include the hospitalization for the Prairie Mountain Health region or ICU admissions at the Brandon Regional Health Centre. Siragusa said this information was not available Monday due to technical issues but will be updated on Tuesday.

She said in Winnipeg, the intensive care units are at 154 per cent of the normal pre-COVID capacity. There were 105 total patients in ICUs, which includes 47 patients who currently have COVID-19 or have had COVID-19 and are now past their infectious stage.

Out of the 64 patients on ventilators, 34 of them have COVID-19 in Winnipeg only.

Patients are not the only ones being impacted by the virus. Siragusa said in the past week, 83 health-care workers tested positive for the virus, 51 of whom were from Winnipeg.

VACCINE 'VERY LIMITED' IN MANITOBA: TOP DOCTOR

There were 2,133 tests completed in Manitoba on Sunday, bringing the total number of tests done since early February to 390,503.

This comes the day after the first shipments of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine arrived in Canada. Manitoba is planning to have an immunization clinic up and running by Wednesday.

READ MORE: Manitoba preparing for COVID-19 vaccine, bumps felt along the way

Roussin said at this time, the supply of the COVID-19 vaccine is "very limited" with enough doses for 900 people. The province said only front-line health providers will be eligible for this first round of vaccinations.

MORE DETAILS ON MANITOBA'S RECENT COVID-19 DEATHS

More details about the nine deaths reported on Monday include: