The province is edging on 500 people in the hospital who have tested positive for COVID-19.

As of Thursday morning, there are 499 people in the hospital with COVID-19. This includes 463 active cases.

There are 47 people in intensive care, with all but two of those people having active cases of the virus.

There are nine new deaths since Wednesday, bringing the total number of deaths to 1,438.

During a Wednesday afternoon press conference, Health Minister Audrey Gordon said the high COVID counts in hospitals is because people who come in for other reasons are testing positive for the virus.

Dr. Tim Hiebert, an internal medicine and palliative care doctor at St. Boniface Hospital,  responded on Twitter, saying all COVID-19 positive patients require extra care compared to others, regardless of the reason for the visit.

"COVID triggers clots, so heart attacks, strokes, other blood clot associated illnesses could be the diagnosis of record, but be in fact caused by COVID," Hiebert tweets.

Hospitalizations by health region include:

  • 313 in Winnipeg, 299 cases active
  • 63 in Southern Health, 53 cases active
  • 58 in Prairie Mountain, 51 cases active
  • 35 in Interlake-Eastern, 33 cases active
  • 30 in Northern Health, 27 cases active

 

 

New cases

As of Thursday morning, there are 1,228 new COVID-19 cases in Manitoba.

New cases by health region include:

  • 663 in Winnipeg
  • 163 in Northern Health
  • 149 in Prairie Mountain
  • 127 in Southern Health
  • 126 in Interlake-Eastern

 

Last week, the Province of Manitoba began swapping PCR tests for Rapid Antigen Tests to help with the results of the COVID-19 test. As daily tests lower to 2,965 from Wednesday, so do official case counts.

On Wednesday, Deputy Chief Public Health Officer Dr, Jazz Atwal said during a press conference that cases will continue to climb.

"COVID-19 is no longer an emerging illness. It is here to stay and our ability to contain the virus is limited. It is highly likely that everyone will be exposed to the virus in the coming weeks," Atwal said Wednesday afternoon.

There are 36,087 active cases and 69,102 recoveries.

Manitoba's five-day test rate is 44.9 per cent.

Related Stories