Manitoba hits highest daily COVID-19 count since June with 218 cases, 2 deaths

Manitoba reports 218 new COVID-19 cases and two deaths on Thursday onthe province's coronavirus data dashboard.

That is the highest daily count in six months since June 12, when it was 294.

The seven-day average daily case count in Manitoba is now181, which is yet another high for the fourth wave.

Nearly half the new cases are in theWinnipeg health region, with 108.

The Southern Health region has 36,the Northern Health Region has 34,Prairie Mountain Health region has 23andthe Interlake-Eastern Health region has 17.

The latest deaths are from the Northern and Interlake-Eastern health regions, each with one.The total number of deaths in Manitoba since the pandemic started is now 1,359.

More specific information about the latest deathssex, age, 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 figuresare available online.

There are 139 Manitobanshospitalized with COVID-19, which is the same number as on Wednesday. Of those, 33are in intensive care units, which is a drop of one.

The five-day test positivity rate in the province continues to climb, now at 6.6per cent, which is up from 6.2 on Wednesday.There is no update on the rate for Winnipeg, which was 4.4per cent on Wednesday.

Of the cases reported Tuesday, 80 (37 per cent) are in people who were not vaccinated against COVID-19 and 17 (eight per cent) were in people who were partly vaccinated. The other 121 (56 per cent) are in fully vaccinated people.

However, when it comes to severity of symptoms, the caseload shifts toward those who are unvaccinated.

Among people hospitalized with active COVID-19, 61 per cent are unvaccinated and 34 per cent are fully vaccinated.

And among patients being treated for active COVID-19 in intensive care, 91 per cent (21) are unvaccinated, four per cent (one) are partly vaccinated and four per cent (one) are fully vaccinated.

As of midnight, there were 102 patients in intensive care units acrossManitoba. That includes patients receiving both COVID and non-COVID care.

The critical care program's pre-COVID baseline capacity was 72 patients.

School cases

The total number of COVID-19 cases linked to schools since classes started on Sept. 7 is now 1,983, the province's dashboard on school data says.

That's an increase of 88 since Tuesday.

Of those, 1,775are student cases and 96are staff. There are 424 schools that have reported one or more cases.

Within the last 14 days, the period in which cases are considered active, there have been 465 cases:409 student cases and 56 staff cases across 182 schools.There are 817 schools in the province.

A map showing school-associated cases within the last 14 dayscan be seen here.

As of Thursday, 84.1 per cent of eligible Manitobans have received one dose of a coronavirus vaccine,78.1 per cent have twodosesand 11.3 per cent have three,the provincial vaccine dashboard says.

Eligibility for first and second doses now includes anyone age five or older.

The total number of doses administered in the province is now at 2,297,218 with another 3,411 scheduled to be given on Thursday.