Up to 1/3 of new COVID-19 cases may be Omicron as Manitoba reports 400 cases, 2 deaths
CBC
Manitoba public health officials announced 400 new COVID-19 cases and two deaths on Wednesday.
That's the highest daily total since May 28, when there were 493. And it has pushed the provincial five-day test positivity rate to 9.9 per cent, a level not seen since June.
That's a significant jump from the 8.6 it was at on Tuesday.
Once again the Winnipeg health region has the majority of the latest cases, with 256.
The city's five-day test positivity rate has skyrocketed to 10.6 per cent. It was 3.7 per cent nine days ago, and at the start of December it was 2.5 per cent.
The Prairie Mountain Health region has 54 of the latest cases, the Southern Health region has 51, the Interlake-Eastern health region has 31 and the Northern Health Region has eight.
The two deaths are a man in his 50s from the Winnipeg health region and a man in his 70s from the Southern Health region.
The total number of deaths in Manitoba since the pandemic started is now 1,368.
"Things are rapidly changing and evolving," said Dr. Jazz Atwal, deputy chief provincial public health officer.
The latest counts most likely underrepresent the true number of coronavirus cases at the moment, some health experts say.
Demand for testing has drastically increased across the country, sparked by fears of the highly infectious Omicron variant.
That has caused long lines at test sites, prolonged waits for results and likely discouraged some people from even going. All of that makes it harder to get an exact picture of the true case counts.
Atwal estimated one-quarter to one-third of all new cases in Manitoba are now Omicron. That is a guess, though, and sequencing will ultimately tell the tale.
"We are concerned with what we are seeing in other provinces and jurisdictions related to Omicron," Atwal said.
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