Manitoba Deputy Chief Public Health Officer Dr. Jazz Atwal announced 53 new cases of COVID-19 this afternoon bringing the five day test positivity rate to three percent.  He also reported one additional death in the Winnipeg region. An outbreak at St. Paul’s Personal Care Home in The Pas has been declared over.

Atwal noted one confirmed case in the province to be the result of the B 1.351 variant of concern has been detected in the Winnipeg health region bringing the total reported to nine.  He explains he knows a number of these are related to travel and he believes those cases have been closed already or those investigations essentially and there’s still a couple of investigations pending so if anything comes out of those investigations that the public needs to know about they will provide that information to the public.

Of the new COVID -19 cases reported 33 are in the Northern health region and 14 in Winnipeg region with single digits in other regions. Of the total 32,104 reported cases 1133 are considered active, 30,067 individuals have recovered and 171 are in hospital with 24 in intensive care.