Provincial Health Minister Cameron Friesen and chief nursing officer Lanette Siragusa updated Manitobans about the COVID-19 pandemic Aug. 4, following a summer long weekend that saw 27 new positive tests for the coronavirus, including 18 reported on Sunday.
There were also two cases reported Saturday, five reported Monday and two reported Aug. 4.
The total number of COVID-19 cases is now 442, 94 of which are active. Nine people are in hospital as a result of the virus, four of them in intensive care.
More than 5,000 people were tested for the novel coronavirus from July 31 to Aug. 3 and the five-day test positivity rate as of Aug. 4, was 0.46 per cent, said Siragusa. Nearly 94,000 Manitobans have been tested for the virus since early February.
“That’s an enviable number depending on where you are in North America right now,” Friesen said of the test positivity rate.
The 18 cases reported Sunday was the highest one-day total for new cases since early April. One-hundred-and-seventeen positive tests have occurred since July 13, including three days with 10 or more new cases, which had not occurred since April. The cases reported in the last three weeks represent more than a quarter of all the COVID-19 cases in Manitoba since the first positive test for the virus in mid-March.
Of the new cases reported over the long weekend, 12 were in the Southern health region, 10 in the Prairie Mountain region, three in the Winnipeg region and two in the Interlake-Eastman health region. The Northern Regional Health Authority area has not had a positive test in almost four months, since early April.
All but two of the 27 new cases reported from July 31 to Aug. 4 were related to travel or occurred among people who had been in close contact with people who had tested positive for COVID-19.
“The risk is fairly low that other people would have been infected with COVID,” said Siragusa.
