Sixteen new cases of COVID-19 in Northern Manitoba were announced April 1, 10 of them in the island Lake health district.
There were also two deaths from the virus announced in Manitoba on Thursday. One of them was a woman in her 40s from the Cross Lake/Pimicikamak health district, according to data on the provincial government’s COVID website. She is the 40th Northern Manitoba resident to die from the virus since the first confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the region was detected just over a year ago. There have now been 937 deaths from the virus in Manitoba since the pandemic began.
There were three new cases in the Bunibonibee/Oxford House/Manto Sipi/Gods River/Godl’s Lake health district April 1 and two in the Thompson/Mystery Lake health district plus one each in the Cross Lake and Grand Rapids/Misipawistik/Mosakahiken/Moose Lake/Easterville/Chemawawin districts.
Across Manitoba, there were 59 new cases announced on Thursday, 32 of them in Winnipeg. The Prairie Mountain health region had seven new cases while there were three in the southern health region and one in the Interlake-Eastern region.
Seven previously announced cases were removed from provincial totals due to data corrections, leaving the net daily increase in cases at 52.
There have also been three more cases detected that involve variants of concern, all from the Winnipeg region. There have now been 235 cases involving the B.1.1.7 or United Kingdom variant in Manitoba and 20 involving the B.1.351 or South Africa variant. There have also been 15 cases involving those variants that have not been categorized for a total of 270 variant cases.
There are 148 Manitobans in hospital due to COVID-19 as of April 1, 65 of them with active infections. Twelve of those 56 are in intensive care as are 18 people who are no longer considered infectious. Twenty-seven people from the north are in hospital, including 18 with active infections, six of whom are in intensive care. Another seven northerners who are no longer considered infectious are still in intensive care as well.
The five-day test positivity rate on April 1 was 3.9 per cent.
