Manitoba broke its record for most new COVID-19 cases in a day on Sunday, as the province announced an additional 494 people had tested positive for the illness.
That update comes just over two weeks after the province posted its previous highest number of new cases — 480 on Oct. 30.
Ten more people in Manitoba have now died of COVID-19, the province says in a news release.
That tally includes seven people linked to the outbreak at the Maples Long Term Care Home in Winnipeg, and comes after Manitoba reported a record 15 deaths in one day on Saturday, most of which were also linked to the outbreak at the Maples Long Term Care Home.
The north Winnipeg care home has become the site of the province’s deadliest COVID-19 outbreak, and is currently the subject of an independent investigation.
At least 32 residents there have died during the outbreak, according to Revera, the for-profit company that runs the site.
The residents whose deaths were announced Sunday were four men (two in their 80s and two in their 90s) and three women (one in her 80s and two in their 90s), the release says.
The other fatalities announced Sunday are a woman in her 80s from the Winnipeg health region, a man in his 100s linked to a cluster of cases at the Seine River Retirement Residence’s assisted living facility in Winnipeg and a woman in her 70s from the Southern Health region, the release says.
The deaths announced Sunday happened between Nov. 3 and 14 and are just now being officially reported by the province, the release says. A total of 162 people in Manitoba have now died after contracting COVID-19.
There are now 220 people hospitalized with the illness, the release says, including 41 in intensive care — another new record, and a jump from 34 the past three days.
The five-day test positivity rate — a rolling average of the COVID-19 tests that come back positive — remains at 12.4 per cent in Manitoba and 13.1 per cent in Winnipeg, the release says.
The majority of Sunday’s new cases — 266 — are in the Winnipeg health region, the release says, while another 136 are in the Southern Health region.
The remaining new cases are spread out across the Prairie Mountain Health region (34), the Northern Health region (30) and the Interlake-Eastern Health region (28), the release says.
Outbreak in Ste. Anne care home
A COVID-19 outbreak has been declared at Villa Youville personal care home in Ste. Anne. The site has been moved to the critical red level of the province’s pandemic response system, the release says.
Meanwhile, the outbreak at the Golden West Centennial Lodge in Winnipeg is now officially over.
Possible COVID-19 exposures are listed for each region on the province’s website.
There have now been 10,947 cases of COVID-19 detected in Manitoba, the release says.
A total of 4,070 have recovered from the illness, while 6,715 cases are still considered technically active — though Chief Provincial Public Health Officer Dr. Brent Roussin said on Thursday that number is skewed because of a data entry backlog, and was likely closer to 3,163 at the time.
On Saturday, more than 100 people gathered at a protest against COVID-19 restrictions in Steinbach. By mid-afternoon, provincial environment and health officers starting handing out fines to some of the people participating in the rally, while other protestors shouted profanities at the officers.
Among those fined for breaking a public health order limiting gatherings to five people in Manitoba was Lewis Weiss, the elected reeve for the neighbouring rural municipality of La Broquerie.
There were 2,715 COVID-19 tests completed across Manitoba on Saturday, which brought the total number of tests done since early February to 309,794, the release says.
