Northern Manitoba drops to 247 active COVID-19 cases, vaccination rates continue climb

COVID-19 cases in Northern Manitoba are starting to drop after an increase last month.

Manitoba as a province reported 226 new net cases, with 13 cases found in the Northern Health Region (NHR). That number is the lowest number of new cases reported in one day in the province since late April.

One new case was reported in the Flin Flon/Snow Lake/Cranberry Portage/Sherridon district, along with two recoveries from the disease. The main locale of recent northern cases has been The Pas/OCN/Kelsey, where 50 people - including six new people in the last day - have active cases of COVID-19.

The remote Island Lake district has the most active cases of COVID-19 of any northern district at 69, but numbers there are declining. Case numbers in remote districts like Island Lake can also be inflated and outdated, due to delays in cases in the districts being marked by provincial officials as "active" and "recovered".

Twelve people from the NHR are currently hospitalized due to COVID-19, including three people who have tested positive for the disease who now require intensive care. There are now 247 active COVID-19 cases throughout northern Manitoba, down from a peak of around 1,700 active cases in the NHR back in January.

Four new outbreaks were reported provincewide - at the GD4 unit of Health Sciences Centre in Winnipeg, Grace Hospital, 3 South in Winnipeg, Beacon Hill Lodge Personal Care Home in Winnipeg and the surgery unit at Dauphin Regional Health Centre. All facilities have been moved to the "red" level of the provincial pandemic response system. No new outbreaks or possible public exposures have been reported for the NHR.

For more detailed district-by-district data for the NHR, see Table A below.

Vaccinations are also increasing throughout the north. Three districts have had over 80 per cent of people receive at least a first dose - Cross Lake/Pimicikamak has just shy of 84 per cent of people with at least one dose, while Norway House has 82.3 per cent and Island Lake has 82.2 per cent. These three districts have the highest vaccination percentage of any health districts in Manitoba.

The Flin Flon health district is setting just shy of two-thirds of all residents having received at least one COVID-19 vaccine dose, with about 62 per cent of people in Thompson/Mystery Lake and about 60 per cent of people in The Pas/OCN/Kelsey having got one or two doses.

All but one northern health district has seen more than half the people living their get at least one vaccine dose - the only laggard is the Lynn Lake/Marcel Colomb/Leaf Rapids/O-Pipon-Na-Piwin/Granville Lake district, where about 49.7 per cent of people have received a dose.

Table A

Table B