92 new COVID-19 cases, no deaths reported in Manitoba Thursday

Manitoba has confirmed 92 more cases of COVID-19, health officials announced Thursday. There were no new deaths from the illness reported.

Details on four COVID-19-related deaths reported earlier this week were reported in Thursday'snews release from the province.

A woman in her 90s from the Prairie Mountain Health region, a man in his 50s from the Northern Health regionand a woman in her 60sdied on Tuesday, while a man in his 80s from the Southern Health region died on Wednesday.

All four deaths are linked to unspecified coronavirus variants of concern, according to the news release.

The provincial five-day test-positivity rate is now 3.2 per cent, up slightly from 3.1 per cent on Wednesday. Winnipeg's rate is 1.3 per cent.

Of the 92 new cases reported on Thursday, 65 were not fully vaccinated.

There were 47 new cases in the Southern Health region, 21 in the Northern Health Region, 15 in the Winnipeg region, seven in Prairie Mountain Health and two in the Interlake-Eastern region.

Of the 65 cases that were not fully vaccinated, 34 are in the Southern region, 15 are in the Northern region, nine are in the Winnipeg region, five are in Prairie Mountain Health, and two are in the Interlake-Eastern region.

A total of 87 Manitobans are currently in hospital due to COVID-19, including 56with active cases of the disease. There are 20 COVID-19 patients in intensive care units.

Another 45 cases have been linked to variants of concern since Wednesday, all of them unspecified.

Labs completed3,208 COVID-19 tests on Wednesday.

With the latest cases announced Thursday, a total of 62,469 people have tested positive for COVID-19, and 60,308 people have recovered since the start of the pandemic.Another 926 cases are still listed as active, and 1,235 people have died from the illness.

2 businesses, 5 individuals fined

The province also said Thursday that between Oct. 11 and 17, provincial enforcement officers fined two businesses $5,000 for violating pandemic public health orders.

Five individuals were fined$1,296 eachfor various offences, and five $298 tickets were given to people for not wearing masks in an indoor public place, the province's news release said.

The province also updated online information on COVID-19 cases in school-age childrenand school staff on Thursday.

No new school outbreaks have been declared, but the total number of cases involving school-age children or school staffrose to 483, up from 454 on Tuesday. There were 25 more student cases and four more staff cases reported.

Two more non-staff COVID-19 cases have been reportedat Springs Christian Academy, where two classes have been on remote learning since last week. That outbreak has now affected four staff and 16 non-staff people at the school, according to the province's website.

A total of 163 schools have now had one or more cases involving students or staff since the start of the school year.