One person has tested positive for the COVID-19 virus in the Northern Regional Health Authority (NRHA) area, chief provincial public health officer Dr. Brent Roussin said at a press conference about the province’s coronavirus pandemic situation March 30.
The positive test was among 24 new probable or confirmed tests for COVID-19 announced by the provincial government on Monday, which brings the total number of cases in Manitoba so far to 96.
Four of the 96 people who have tested positive are currently in hospital, Roussin said, including one who is in intensive care. One person in Manitoba has died so far as a result of contracting COVID-19.
Roussin said he did not know when the positive test from the NRHA area was conducted and did not provide information about where the person who tested positive lives.
A woman from the Flin Flon area posted on a community Facebook group that her daughter, who travelled outside of Canada in early March, was tested for COVID-19 last week and received news that she had tested positive for the virus.
Roussin said people should not make assumptions about their risk of exposiure to the novel coronavirus based on the number of probable or confirmed cases within their health region.
“It’s not really to change people’s behaviour,” Roussin said while addressing why COVID-19 cases are broken down by health region, saying that people should practise physical and social distancing by staying home and away from other people as much as possible regardless of how many positive tests there have been in the area where they live.
Manitoba chief nursing officer Lanette Siragusa said that medical staff from within Manitoba who travel to other parts of the province for short-term work assignments have been instructed to stay home when they are sick to reduce the risk of exposing anyone to COVID-19 or other viruses and that organizations outside the province who provide temporary health care workers follow the same advice.
“We’ve been in contact with some of the agencies that provide staff from out of province that they should stay home if sick,” she said.
