272 new COVID-19 cases, 2 deaths reported in Manitoba

Manitoba has pushed past 40,000 COVID-19 cases since the pandemic began, with another 272 cases announced on Wednesday.

This is the sixth consecutive day the new caseload has topped 250.

The province also reported two more deaths related to the virus and a jump of 84new variant cases.

Bothdeaths are from the Winnipeg health region:a man in his 60sand a woman in her 70swho had the B117 variant first found in the U.K., a news release said.

The Winnipeg region once again has the vast share of new cases, with 182.

The rest are in thePrairie Mountain Health region (37),Interlake-Eastern health region (20),Southern Healthregion (20) andNorthern Health Region (13).

Of the new variant cases, four are the highly contagious P1 strain.

There have now been 15 cases of P1 detected in the province since the first one just three weeks ago.

The number of hospitalizations in the province also edged up slightly on Wednesday to 184, from 182 on Tuesday; the number in intensive care remained at 47.

The current five-day COVID-19 test positivity rate for Manitoba is also up slightly, at 8.8 per cent (from 8.5 on Tuesday), while the rate remained the same at 9.2 per cent in Winnipeg.