8 COVID-19 deaths reported in Manitoba on Friday, hospitalizations drop by 1

Eight deaths related to COVID-19 and a drop of one hospitalization due to the viruswere reported inManitoba Friday in a news release.

There are now 664 people in hospital, down from 665 on Thursday, including50in intensive care units a number unchanged from Thursday.

This is the first time in four weeks that the number of patients in hospital has decreased.

Seven of thelatest deaths are from the Winnipeg health region and one is from theInterlake-Eastern health region.

Those fromWinnipeg are two women in their 60s, a woman in her 80s, a man in his 90s, a woman in her 80s who isa linked to anoutbreak at Actionmarguerite St. Boniface, a man in his 80slinked to anoutbreak at Vista Park Lodge and a woman inher 80s linked to an outbreak at Victoria General Hospital, unit 4 south.

The death in theInterlake-Eastern region is a man in his 60s.

More details were also released about seven deaths posted Thursday on the province's online dashboard; six are from the Winnipeg region and one is from the Southern Health region.

Those from Winnipeg are a woman in her 60s, two men in their 70s, a woman in her 70s, a woman in her 70s linked to an outbreak at Oakview Place personal care home and a woman in her80s linked to an outbreak at Actionmarguerite St. Joseph.

The death in Southern Healthis a woman in her 50s.

The province's death toll related to COVID-19is now 1,492.

Another 827 new COVID-19 cases were also reported Friday, a drop of 24 from Thursday. The pandemic total number of cases is now 114,021.

Health officials have repeatedly said those numbers are a significant undercount of the total number of active cases.

The rapid spread of the Omicron variant has overwhelmed testing capacity and led to numerous cases going unreported. Many people are now using rapid tests at home, and those results are not entered into the provincial database.

Manitoba isstrictly restrictingaccess toPCR tests at provincial sites. To protect capacity, those tests arelimited to certain people, including some symptomatic people and some people who have had a positive rapid test.

More than half of the latest cases are in the Winnipeg health region, with 444.

There are 133 in the Prairie Mountain Health region, 124in theNorthern Health Region, 69 in the Southern Health region and 57in the Interlake-Eastern health region.

A breakdown of the latest cases by vaccination statuscan be viewed on a chart on the government website.

Maps of cases and data from different regions and health districts can be found on the province's dashboard.

The total number of patients in ICUs both those with COVID-19 and those being treated for non-COVID-related issues remains at 103.

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

New outbreaks have been declared at Health Sciences Centre's unit PX3in Winnipegand the Brandon Regional Health Centre's 300surgical unit. The outbreak is now declared over atHealth Sciences Centre'sGA5unit in Winnipeg.

As of Friday, 85.3 per cent of eligible Manitobanshave had at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, while 78.5 per cent have had at least two and 37.4 per cent have had three, theprovincial vaccine dashboard says.

Eligibility for first and second dosesincludes anyone age five or older. People 18 or older are eligible for a third dose, if there's been a long enough interval since they received their second dose.

So far, 67,528 first doses have been given to children agefive to 11, or 54 per cent of that age group.The second round of vaccines for that group beganthis week.

The total number of doses administered in the province for all those eligible is now at 2,688,402 with 3,353 more scheduled to be given on Friday.