One new positive test for COVID-19 in the Northern Regional Health Authority (NRHA) was among 42 new cases of the virus announced by the provincial government Sept. 23.
The new northern case was identified as being from an unknown health district but the NRHA has confirmed to the Flin Flon Reminder that the case is in a person living in Winnipeg with an outdated northern address - the third such case to be reported in the past two weeks.
"The unknown category is used when the identifying information does not allow the individual to be assigned to a district geography," said a statement from a provincial spokesperson to the Reminder about the "unknown district" designation and how it is used. "The regional health authority is still recorded but the case is assigned to the unknown district while investigation works to resolve the location and assign it correctly."
There were also six new cases in the southern health region, three in the Prairie Mountain region, two in the Interlake-Eastman region and 30 cases in the Winnipeg health region.The new cases bring Manitoba’s total to 1,674 since the pandemic began. Of those, 418 are active cases, 1,238 are considered recovered and 18 people have died. There are currently 11 people in Manitoba hospitals as a result of COVID-19, three of them in intensive care.
There were two cases of COVID-19 in Thompson and one in Flin Flon in the early days of the pandemic, and one in the Gillam area in August. Since then, there have been three cases originally attributed to the north, but one turned out to be a resident of the Saskatchewan health district that includes Creighton and the Saskatchewan portion of Flin Flon. Two others were originally identified as coming from the Shamattawa/Tataskweyak/York Factory health district but turned out to be Winnipeg residents who hadn’t updated their addresses with Manitoba Health after moving.
