99 new cases of COVID-19, 1 death reported in Manitoba on Tuesday

Manitoba reported fewer than 100 new cases of COVID-19 on Tuesday for the first time in more than two weeks.

There are99 new cases of COVID-19 and one death,the province's online coronavirus dashboard says. It's the lowest daily case number in Manitobasince Nov. 1.

There are41 new cases in the Southern Health region, 38 in the Winnipeg health region, 14 in the Prairie Mountain Health region, four in the Interlake-Eastern health region and two in the Northern Health Region.

The total number of deaths caused by the disease is now 1,274, including 258 linked to more contagious coronavirus variants. There are 1,445 active cases of COVID-19 and 63,137people have recovered.

The provincial test positivity rate is holding steady at 5.9 per cent.On Monday, 2,244 lab tests were done.

There are 157 Manitobans in hospital with COVID-19, a jump of 11 from 146 on Monday.

There are now 84patients in intensive care units in the province, with 29of them COVID-19 patients. Manitoba's pre-pandemic baseline capacity was 72 ICU beds.

Variant, school cases spike

There are 358 moreCOVID-19 cases now linked tohighly contagious coronavirus variants since the variant dashboard was last updated on Friday.

Of those, the bulk are linked to variants that have not yet been specified. In addition, 123 more cases have been classified as linked to thedelta variant, also known as B.1.617.2.

There are now 524 active COVID-19 cases linked to variants of concern.

There are are also 153 moreCOVID-19 cases linked to schools, the province said on the school-agedashboard.

There have been 1,150 COVID-19 cases since school started in September, up from 997 when the dashboard was last updated on Friday.

Of the cases, 992 are among students and 158 are in staff members.

There are 284 schools with one or more cases of COVID-19, and cohorts from seven schools are currently in remote learning.