A man in his 40s whose death was reported Tuesday is the 65th person from Northern Manitoba to die as a result of COVID-19.
The death was one of six across Manitoba in the last two days reported by the provincial government Dec. 1. Data on the province’s COVID-19 website indicates that the man was a resident of the Bunibonibee/Oxford House/Manto Sipi/God’s River/God’s Lake health district, which has the second highest number of active COVID-19 cases in the north right now.
1,321 Manitobans have died of COVID-19 since the pandemic began.
Manitoba public health identified 252 new cases of the virus over the past two days, including 128 on Tuesday and 124 on Wednesday. 69 of today’s new cases affected people who are not fully vaccinated against COVID-19.
There have been 17 new cases of COVID-19 in the north over those two days, including 13 on Tuesday and four today. Three of the new cases identified today affected people who are not fully vaccinated.
The Island Lake health district has 101 active cases, followed by Bunibonibee with 66, Pukatawagan/Mathias Colomb with 53, Norway House with 46 and Cross Lake/Pimicikamak with 22. There are three active cases in Thompson/Mystery Lake and the same number in the Sayisi Dene/Tadoule Lake/Barren Lands/Brochet/Northlands/Lac Brochet health district.
The five-day test positivity rate in Manitoba is 5.2 per cent and chief provincial public health officer Dr. Brent Roussin said Dec. 1 that test positivity is remaining stable in the five health regions as well.
143 Manitobans are in hospital due to to COVID-19, including 24 in intensive care. There are seven northern residents in hospital as a result of their infections, one of them in intensive care.
Approximately 50 per cent of active infections overall and active infections among those hospitalized are in unvaccinated people. 88 per cent of intensive care patients with active infections are unvaccinated.
14,101 first doses have been given to Manitobans aged five to 11 so far, which represents about 11.3 per cent of the province’s total population in that age category, which is about 125,000 people. Another 14,000 appointments have been booked, said vaccine task force medical lead Dr. Joss Reimer.
“We’re really happy with how quickly people have signed up already,” she said.
80.5 per cent of Manitobans five and older have received at least one vaccine dose and 77.1 per cent have received two doses.
Overall vaccination numbers in the southern health region continue to lag behind those in other areas, Reimer said.
“Those numbers are obviously not going up as fast as we would like,” Reimer said,
Part of the problem is targeted campaigns discouraging people from getting vaccinated.
“They are being bombarded by scary-sounding misinformation,” she said, but there is plenty of evidence that vaccination has helped limit the severity of the pandemic’s fourth wave.
“This wave just has not seen the same peak” as earlier waves, Reimer said.
