2 women in their 40s latest COVID-19 deaths in Manitoba, as 59 new cases announced

There are 59new COVID-19 cases in Manitoba and twowomen in their 40s have died after getting the illness, the province said in a news release Thursday.

One of the women was from the Northern Health Region while the other was from the Southern Health region, the release said. Their deaths bring Manitoba's total fatalities linked to the illness to 937.

The province also announced three more cases of highly transmissible coronavirus variants, all in the Winnipeg health region.

There have now been a total of270 cases of the more contagious variants identified in the province: 235 of the B117 strain, which was first seen in the U.K.;20 of the B1351 variant first detected in South Africa and 15 cases that have not yet been categorized, the release said.

Most of the COVID-19 cases announced on Thursday are in the Winnipeg health region, which posted 32 new infections. The remaining new cases are split between the Northern Health Region (16), the Prairie Mountain Health region (seven), the Southern Health region (three) and the Interlake-Eastern health region (one).

There are now 148 COVID-19 patients in hospital, up by two from Wednesday. That includes 30 people in intensive care,also up by two.

Manitoba's five-day test positivity rate is now 3.9 per cent, up slightly from 3.8 per cent on Wednesday. In Winnipeg, that rate rose to 3.6 per cent, up from 3.3 per cent.

The province said the COVID-19 outbreak at St. Amant Health and Transition Services is now over.

Some of Manitoba's COVID-19 test sites will be closed or will adjust their hours over the Easter long weekend. Hours for the sites are listed on the province's website.

There will also be some changes to Manitoba's usual COVID-19 update schedule over the long weekend.

The province says it won't issue a news release or an onlineupdate on Friday orSunday. It typically updates information daily on its COVID-19 dashboard.

There will still be regular COVID-19 news releases and web updates on Saturday and Monday, along with a vaccine update news release on Monday.

The province's next COVID-19 media briefing is Tuesday, when Chief Provincial Public Health Officer Dr. Brent Roussin is scheduled to speak.

There have now been 34,174 COVID-19 cases identified in Manitoba, including 32,058 considered recovered, the release said. Another 1,179 cases are still deemed active.

There were 1,561 COVID-19 tests done in Manitoba on Wednesday, bringing the total number of swabs completed in the province since early February 2020 to 584,267.