Manitoba tops 1K daily mark for first time with 1,123 new COVID-19 cases, 3 deaths
CBC
Manitoba reported 1,123 new COVID-19 cases and three deaths on Thursday, according to the provincial dashboard.
It's the first time the province has surpassed 1,000 new cases in a single day, pushing the province's total reported cases past another milestone to 78,606 since the pandemic began.
The lion's share of Thursday's new cases and deaths are in the Winnipeg health region, which posted 764 along with two deaths.
There are 115 new cases in the Interlake-Eastern health region, 111 in the Southern Health region, 93 in the Prairie Mountain Health region and 40 in the Northern Health Region.
The other death was reported in the Southern Health region. The total number of deaths in Manitoba since the pandemic started is now 1,387.
More specific information about the people who died — sex, age and any links to outbreaks or virus variants — is not yet available. The Manitoba government no longer holds news conferences or sends news releases on Thursdays to update case numbers, although some figures are available online.
The five-day test positivity rate in the province continues its torrid climb, reaching 27.3 per cent on Thursday, up from 24.2 per cent on Wednesday. One week ago it was 10.9 per cent.
The rate for Winnipeg was not updated since Wednesday's 26.2 per cent. That rate was just 4.4 per cent two weeks ago.
Another startling statistic is the province's seven-day average daily case count, which is at 827. One week ago it was 329.
The province has recorded 5,049 new cases since Christmas Day.
A breakdown of the latest cases by vaccination status can be viewed on an interactive chart on the government website.
The total number of COVID-19 cases linked to schools since classes started on Sept. 7 is now 2,967, the province's dashboard on school data says.
That's an increase of 591 since Dec. 23, when it was last updated.
Of those, 2,361 are student cases (up 349) and 364 are staff (up 242). There have been 511 schools that have reported one or more cases, which is an increase of 48.
At a time when Canada is vastly expanding its child-care system, and just eight months after a major E. coli outbreak in Calgary child-care centres, an Alberta Health Services analysis shows the province is lagging in its rate of daycare inspections, falling far short of its guideline of at least two inspections per year at each of the province's licensed daycare centres.