Record 19 COVID deaths in Manitoba Saturday, including woman in her 20s

A record19more people have died from COVID-19 in Manitoba, including a woman from the Winnipeg health regionin her 20s.

The province also announced 354 new cases of the illness in a Saturday news release.

The total number of deaths related to the illness is now 381.

More than 240 COVID-19 deaths were reported in Manitoba in November, and there have now been 70 in the first five days of December alone. That includes16 deaths Manitoba's previous one-day high reported on Tuesday.

Over half of the deaths announcedSaturday are related to outbreaks at Winnipeg personal care homes, including:

• Three at Park Manor Care Home (a man in his 70s, a man in his 90s and a woman in her 90s).
• Three at St. Norbert Personal Care Home (a man in his 70s, a man in his 80s and a woman in her 90s).
• Two at Holy Family Home (a woman in her 90s and a woman over the age of 100).
• A man in his 90satBethaniaMennonite Personal Care Home.
• A woman in her 70s at Oakview Place Personal Care Home.

A woman in her60s linked to the outbreak at The Pas Hospital acute care also died.

The woman in her 20s is the second-youngest person in Manitoba to die from the illness, after the death of a boy under the age of 10 last week.

Seven otherpeople from the Winnipeg health regionhave died, includinga man in his 50s, a man in his 60s, two women and a manin their 70s, a man in his 80s and a woman in her 90s.

Number in hospital drops

There are now 349 people in hospital with COVID-19, including 51in intensive care. Those numbers are down from record highs on Friday of 361 in hospital and 55 in intensive care.

Of the new cases, 235 are in Winnipeg, 44 in the Southern Health region, 32 in the Interlake-Eastern health region, 31 in the Northern Health region and 12 cases in the Prairie Mountain Health Region.

Manitoba's five-day COVID-19 test positivity rate a rolling average of the COVID-19 tests that come back positiveis13.1 per cent provincially, down slightly from 13.4 per cent on Friday.In Winnipeg, the rate fellto 14.1 per cent from 14.6 per cent.

There are currently9,115 active cases listed in the province, and8,927 have recovered.

Two newCOVID-19 outbreaks were also reported Saturday, including one at the Greendale Estate assisted living facility in Grunthal.

The province also declared an outbreak atMilner Ridge Correctional Centre nearBeausejour, where staff cases had previously been reported.

Both Greendale and Milner Ridge have now been moved to the red, or critical,level of theprovince's pandemic response system.

Previously declaredoutbreaks in the GA4 unit at the Health Sciences Centre inWinnipeg and at Seymour Pacific Developments Ltd. in Brandon are now over.

Saturday's update comes a day after the provincereleased projections on Friday that suggest sweeping restrictions in Manitoba have barely kept the province from its worst-case scenario for daily COVID-19 cases, which assumes few restrictions and poor compliance in the province.

There were 320 new cases announced in the province on Friday.

The province also said Saturday that2,981 tests were completed on Friday. That bringsthe total number of lab tests completed since early February to 369,154.