Manitoba health officials announce 400 new COVID-19 cases, 11 deaths

The five-day Provincial Test positivity rate also reached a new high of 14.2 per cent.

“We have announced the numbers,” said Dr Brent Rousin, chief provincial public health officer. “It’s a very difficult time.”

Rousseau said he received news that someone pretending to be was calling businesses. He said he was not calling businesses directly.

“I think misinformation is a real negative thing,” he said. “There’s a lot of work to be done to convince people that this is not important. It is very clear that our hospitals are reaching capacity.”

A week ago the entire province code was changed to red under the Provincial Pandemic Response System, although records continue to be broken every day.

People who do not wear masks in indoor public places can now be fined a new $ 298, which is required by current public health regulations.

Premier and Rousin have recently launched several attempts to increase implementation in the hopes of preventing the spread of coronavirus.

190 deaths so far

190 people have died in Manitoba so far, most of them since the beginning of October.

Of the deaths announced Wednesday, five were from the Winnipeg Health Region, three of whom were related to the Golden Lakes Lodge outbreak. Three died in the Southern Health Region, two in Interlake-Eastern and one in Prairie Mountain.

All but one of the new deaths were over 60 years of age. A woman in her 50s from the Southern Health Area was among the dead.

Rausin urged monitobans not to leave their homes except for essential items, and he stressed that people should not go to the shops for Black Friday sales.

About half of the Manitoba intensive care units currently have COVID-19 patients, said Lanette Siragusa, chief nursing officer at Shared Health.

She said some staff who normally work in surgery and other departments will be reassigned to medicine units in hospitals to help with COVID-19 cases.

“It was disruptive to our staff, it was really disruptive to our other patients as well,” she said.

Syracuse said 771 elemental and emergency surgeries have been canceled since Oct. 26.

“We want to realize how difficult it is for people,” she said. “We apologize. This is something we have to do in the middle.”

The outbreak was also announced in a third unit, GA3, at the Health Sciences Center.

So far, 29 patients and 23 staff at the hospital have undergone positive tests across three units, with two patients dying, Siragusa said.

Still to come

Read the previous version of this story below:

Manitoba health officials will give an update on COVID-19 today as hospital beds in a partial lockdown across the province fill almost a week.

Chief Public Health Officer Dr. Brent Rousin and Shared Health Chief Nursing Officer Lanette Siragusa will talk about the latest trends in Manitoba at 12:30 p.m. CBC News broadcasts the news conference live here and on CBC Gem, Facebook and Twitter.

Extensive sanctions have been in place since Thursday, but cases and community outreach continue to rise. Five-day test positivity rate and hospital records were set Tuesday.

The hospital system is at or near capacity, with 240 COVID-19 patients hospitalized as of Tuesday, 41 of whom are in intensive care.

Rousin and Siragusa have repeatedly said in recent weeks that health care workers have been struggling to keep up with the influx and that the increasing hospitalization rate cannot be sustained for long.

The number of those hospitalized with illness has doubled since November 1 – from 120 to 240 – with nearly three dozen current patients under the age of 50. More than 300 health care workers have been tested positive since the end of September.

The youngest person to die of COVID-19 in Manitoba, in his 30s, from the Interlake-Eastern Health Region, Reported yesterday, The death toll rose to 179.

Nearly 90 percent of COVID-19 deaths in the province have occurred since the beginning of last month.