Manitoba reported 283 new cases of COVID-19 and 16 deaths related to the virus on the first day of December.
Due to a data correction removing one previous cases from Manitoba’s totals, the net increase was 282 new cases. There have now been more than 17,000 positive tests for COVID-19 since the pandemic began and 328 people have died from the virus.
Chief provincial public health officer Dr. Brent Roussin, after reading the ages and locations of the province’s latest COVID-19 deaths, said “we can’t continue to read list such as this daily.”
While case counts are not growing, they are not going down fast enough, he said.
“The situation we’re in is critical. Our daily numbers are too high."
There are 338 people in hospital due to the virus including 48 in intensive care, though there are more people still receiving critical care who are considered recovered from the disease if it has been more than 30 days since their symptoms first appeared.
The provincial government said there were 22 new cases of COVID-19 in the Northern Regional Health Authority on Tueday, but the total number only rose 15 from yesterday’s 1,018 to 1,033 today. There were four new cases since yesterday in the Norway House, Shamattawa/York Factory/Tataskweyak/Split Lake and The Pas/Opaskwayak Cree Nation/Kelsey health districts, and two in the Thompson/Mystery Lake health district, which now has 32 actives cases. No other northern districts had more than a single new case and two cases from unknown districts on the government’s website have been removed since Nov. 30.
A potential public exposure at the Thompson General Hospital diagnostics/laboratory waiting room that occurred on Nov. 25 between 1 p.m. and 3 p.m. has been added to the list of possible exposure events.
The strict lockdown at Cross Lake/Pimicikamak Cree nation has ended now that the transmission of COVID-19 has stabilized. There are currently 32 active cases in the community, which previously had as many as 70.
