Canada

Hospital and Intensive Care Jump jumps in the latest weekly update for COVID-19 in Manitoba

The number of COVID-19 hospitalizations continued to rise in Manitoba last week, according to a weekly epidemiological report released on Thursday.

From April 3 to 9, 177 people were admitted to hospital with COVID-19.

This is an increase of 36, or 25.5 percent, compared to 141 hospital admissions reported the previous week.

The province also reported a jump in the number of people admitted to intensive care units – 19 last week compared to 11 the previous week.

The latest update says five more people died from COVID-19 last week, bringing the publicly reported death toll in Manitoba to 1,759.

On Monday, CBC News published leaked data reported in an internal provincial database. These data show that an additional five people died of the coronavirus from 9 to 11 April, bringing the total to 1764.

Laboratory tests have confirmed 1,694 new cases, with 335 more than 1,359 reported last week, an increase of 25 percent.

However, these numbers are considered insufficient due to limited access to polymerase chain reaction (PCR) testing, the only type of test officially registered by the province. The province does not track positive results from rapid tests.

There were 829 confirmed cases in the Winnipeg health region, 265 in Prairie Mountain Health, 252 in the Interlake-Eastern health region, 215 in the southern health region and 133 in the northern health region.

The test-positive rate in the province also rose from 18.6% to 20.7%. Laboratories completed an average of 1,166 tests a day last week.

There was one new outbreak reported at a long-term care facility last week, compared to seven a week ago.