The number of new daily COVID-19 cases in Winnipeg has almost halved over the weekend compared to last week's numbers.

There are 53 new COVID-19 cases in Manitoba including:

• two cases in the Interlake–Eastern health region; 
• 27 cases in the Northern health region;  
• two cases in the Prairie Mountain Health region;  
• one case in the Southern Health–Santé Sud health region; and  
• 21 cases in the Winnipeg health region.Public health officials advise that no additional deaths in people with COVID-19 are being reported today.

The current five-day COVID-19 test positivity rate is 4.2 per cent provincially and 3.3 per cent in Winnipeg.

Dr. Brent Roussin says while case numbers are moving in the right direction, variants of concern continue to rise in the province, mostly in Winnipeg.

Public health officials are announcing that 136 new screened and sequenced cases of variant of concerns have been detected, five from the Interlake–Eastern health region, 14 from the Southern Health–Santé Sud health region and 117 from the Winnipeg health region. All of these are previously-identified cases. Roussin says the province is moving along with Ontario and Alberta as they move away from only announcing sequenced tests and towards reporting all positive cases.

Roussin says approximately one-third of the new cases last week were from the B.117 variant, which has increased severity in younger people.


The data also shows:
• 1,177 active cases and 31,864 individuals who have recovered from COVID-19; 
• 66 people in hospital with active COVID-19 as well as 83 people in hospital with COVID-19 who are no longer infectious but continue to require care, for a total of 149 hospitalizations; 
• 11 people in intensive care units with active COVID-19 as well as 16 people with COVID-19 who are no longer infectious but continue to require critical care, for a total of 27 ICU patients; 
• the total number of deaths in people with COVID-19 is 934; and
• the total number of confirmed variant of concern cases of B.1.1.7 is 116, the total number of variant of concern cases of B.1.351 is 14, and the total number of variant of concern cases that have not been categorized is 129, bringing the total number of confirmed variant of concern cases to 259. 

Laboratory testing numbers show 1,685 tests were completed yesterday, bringing the total number of lab tests completed since early February 2020 to 579,262.  

An outbreak has been declared at St. Amant Health and Transition Services in Winnipeg. The facility has been moved to the Critical (red) level on the #RestartMB Pandemic Response System.

The outbreak at Extendicare Tuxedo Villa in Winnipeg has been declared over.