Manitoba Deputy Chief Public Health Officer Dr. Jazz Atwal announced 588 new cases of COVID-19 this afternoon bringing the five day test positivity rate to 14.1percent.  He also announced three additional deaths with two in Prairie Mountain and one in Interlake Eastern region. Of the new cases 420 are in the Winnipeg region with lower numbers in other region including 26 in Northern health.  Of the 47,504 confirmed cases 4855 are considered active, 41,627 people have recovered and 296 are in hospital with 79 in intensive care.

Chief Nursing Officer Lanette Siragusa says steps are being taken to continue to deal with high numbers.  She explains work is ongoing to ensure they have appropriate staffing resources in place across the province over the weekend and as with previous weaves the need to provide care for a high number of COVID patients now means they will need to decrease surgical procedures in order to move staff to surgery as well as to free up some medicine beds.

Siragusa adds they still need the help of all Manitobans to get through this as we are close to the end and the vaccines are working so please get vaccinated and follow the public health orders.