302 new COVID-19 cases, no deaths reported in Manitoba on Tuesday

There are 302 new COVID-19 cases and no new deaths posted on the provincial coronavirus data website on Tuesday.

The Winnipeg health region has the majority of the latest cases with 200.

No other region comes close. Even the Southern Health region, which frequently had the highest case numbers over the past several months, has 47.

The Prairie Mountain Health region is next with 30, followed by the Interlake-Eastern health region with 14 and the Northern Health Region with 11.

The total number of deaths in Manitoba since the pandemic started remains at 1,366.

The seven-day average daily case count in Manitoba, however, continues its climb. It is now 253, which is the highest running average since June 9, when it was 263.

The province's five-day test positivity rate is also steadily rising, reaching 8.6 per cent on Tuesday. That's up from eight per cent on Monday.

There is no update for the rate in Winnipeg, which was 8.1 per cent on Monday. At the beginning of last week, the rate in Winnipeg was 3.7 per cent and it was and 5.7 per cent provincially.

The Manitoba government no longer holds news conferences or sends news releases on Tuesdays to update case numbers, although some figures are available online.

Of the 302 cases reported Tuesday, 60 (20 per cent) are in people who were not vaccinated against COVID-19 and 12 (four per cent) are in people who were partly vaccinated. The other 230 (76 per cent) are in fully vaccinated people.

However, when it comes to severity of symptoms, the caseload shifts toward those who are unvaccinated.

Among people hospitalized with active COVID-19, 52 per cent are unvaccinated and 43 per cent are fully vaccinated.

And of the patients being treated for active COVID-19 in intensive care, 89 per cent are unvaccinated, five per cent are partly vaccinated and five per cent are fully vaccinated. (The percentages don't total 100 due to rounding.)

As of Tuesday, 133 Manitobans are hospitalized with COVID-19, which is a drop of four from Monday. Of those, 26 are in intensive care units, which is one fewer than Monday.

School cases

The total number of COVID-19 cases linked to schools since classes started on Sept. 7 is now 2,268, the province's dashboard on school data says.

That's an increase of 197 since Thursday, when it was last updated.

Of those, 1,775 are student cases (up 166) and 327 are staff (up 31). There have been 447 schools that have reported one or more cases, which is an increase of 23.

Within the last 14 days, the period in which cases are considered active, there have been 477 cases: 408 student cases and 69 staff cases across 198 schools. Two schools have gone into remote learning.

There are 817 schools in the province.

A map showing school-associated cases within the last 14 days can be seen here.

As of Tuesday, 84.5 per cent of eligible Manitobans have received one dose of a coronavirus vaccine, 78.2 per cent have both doses and 15.5 per cent have a third shot, the provincial vaccine dashboard says.

Eligibility for first and second doses now includes anyone age five or older. Anyone age 18 or older is eligible for a third dose, if there's been a long enough interval since the second dose.

The total number of doses administered in the province is now at 2,360,008 with 3,411 scheduled to be given on Tuesday.