Northern Manitoba passed 3,000 total cases of COVID-19 since the pandemic began Jan. 19, accounting for nearly 30 per cent of the 111 new cases of the virus that the province reported Tuesday.
There have now been 3,009 cases of the virus in Northern Manitoba, excluding Churchill, since the pandemic began and 1,459 of them are considered active.
Eighteen new cases were reported in the Island Lake health district, where there are outbreaks in both Red Sucker Lake and Garden Hill and there are now 509 active cases overall. There were three other districts with three new cases each, including the Gillam/Fox Lake health district and the Flin Flon/Snow Lake/Cranberry/Shierrdon heath district.
Misipawistik Cree Nation at Grand Rapids has 35 confirmed cases and well over 200 contacts in a community of 1,400 people, said Chief Heidi Cook said in a Manitoba Keewatinowi Okimakanak (MKO) press release.
“The Rapid Response Team arrived in our community yesterday to do rapid testing for the virus,” she said. “This is a worrisome situation as we don’t have robust health care facilities or a lot of extra spaces for people to self-isolate in our community. The Moderna vaccine does provide some hope that we can at least help protect the elders in our community while we await more vaccines. We hope to start vaccinating our elders on Thursday, Jan. 21. For now, I am encouraging all citizens in our area and across the province to observe the public health measures that we need to follow to stop the spread of the virus.”
Hospitalization numbers for the Northern Regional Health Authority were also up Jan. 19, with 34 people in hospital overall, two of whom no longer have active infections and seven of whom are in intensive care. Throughout the province, there were 279 people in hospital due to COVID-19, 131 of whom are still considered infectious. That number includes 37 people in intensive care, 12 of whom are no longer infectious.
Eleven deaths due to COVID-19 were announced on Tuesday, bringing the provincial total to 783 since the pandemic began after the subtraction of a previous death announced Sunday, which turned out not to have been a result of the virus.
Chief provincial public health officer Dr. Brent Roussin said at a Jan. 19 press conference that some public health restrictions on household gatherings, in-person shopping for non-essential items and barber shops and hair salons may be relaxed in some of the province’s region, but not the north.
“Given the high rate of cases in Northern Manitoba currently, including many First Nations in the Northern Health Region, and the need to protect many of those communities which are susceptible for large outbreaks, it is possible that any of these proposed changes would only apply to regions other than Northern Health,” he said. “This loosening of restrictions is unlikely to include the Northern Health Region because of the current trajectory there.”
