Manitoba reports a record 1,494 new COVID-19 cases, 5 deaths on New Year's Eve

Manitoba is reporting a record 1,494 new cases of COVID-19 and five deaths, the province said in a news release Friday afternoon.

It's the second consecutive day the province has surpassed 1,000 new cases in a single day, pushing the province's total reported cases past the 80,000-case mark since the pandemic began.

Winnipeg accounted for 860 of the new cases, with the Prairie Mountain, Interlake-Eastern, Southern and Northern health regions tallying 243, 164, 157 and 70 cases respectively.

Three of the deaths are from the Winnipeg health region – all women in their 70s, 80s and 90s, respectively. The other deaths are a man in his 50s from the Southern region and a woman in her 50s from the Northern region, according to the release.

The three deaths reported Thursday include a man in his 70s and another in his 80s, both from the Winnipeg region, as well as a man in his 80s from the Southern region.

The total number of deaths in the province sits at 1,392.

The five-day test positivity rate in the province continues to increase, reaching 30.7 per cent on Friday, up from 27.3 per cent on Thursday. One week ago it was 12.6 per cent.

In Winnipeg, that rate jumped to 32.2 per cent, up from 26.2 per cent Wednesday. That rate was just 5.5 per cent two weeks ago.

The province has recorded 6,543 new cases since Christmas Day, an average of 934 per day for the last week of the year.

There are nearly 10,000 active cases of COVID-19 in Manitoba.

There are 192 Manitobans in hospital, including 148 active, with COVID-19, an increase of two from Thursday. Thirty of those in hospital are in intensive care units, up one from a day earlier. Twenty-seven of those 30 patients are currently infected with the virus.

A total of 4,343 COVID-19 labratory tests were completed Thursday, marking only the second time since Thanksgiving Day that the province had processed that many specimens.

As of Friday, a total of 2,474,444 doses of vaccine have been administered in Manitoba, including 58,751 first doses given to children ages five to 11. This represents 46.9 per cent of children in that age group, the release said.

According to the province, 85 per cent of all eligible Manitobans ages five and up have received at least one dose of the vaccine, 78.5 per cent have received two doses and 23.5 per cent have received three doses.