On April 5, the province reported 135 cases from the prior 48 hours, 43 of them from the NRHA. The new cases reported for the previous two days announced on Monday included 10 from the Island Lake health district, eight from the Flin Flon/SnownLake/Cranberry/Sherridon health district, six from the Thompson/Mystery Lake health district and five from the Grand Rapids/Misipawistik/Mosakahiken/Moose Lake/Easterville/Chemawawin district. There have now been a total of 6,080 confirmed cases of the virus in the north since the pandemic began. Three more deaths from the virus were reported April 3 and April 5, taking the provincial total to 940.
The Flin Flon district saw the most cases of any district in the NHR aside from the Cross Lake/Pimicikamak district, where 28 new cases were found. The origins and exact location of the Flin Flon district cases - aside from them being somewhere in Flin Flon, Snow Lake, Cranberry Portage or Sherridon - are unknown. At least one case has been directly linked to a Flin Flon school. Ruth Betts Community School announced March 5 that at least one person at the school had tested positive earlier in the week and was at the school March 2 during a period when they may have been infectious. The person was in the Wolf cohort of the school, which consists of some of the school s Grade 3, 4 and 5 students. A letter was sent out to parents and the public on the school s official Facebook account March 5.
Eight of the new northern cases announced Monday came from the Island Lake health district, while two were from Thompson and one each were from the Sayisi Dene/Tadoule/Barren Lands/Brochet/Northlands/Lac Brochet and The Pas/Opaskwayak/Kelsey health districts. There have now been 4,149 positive tests for COVID-19 in the Northern Regional Health Authority (NRHA) since the pandemic began. 718 of those cases are currently considered active. Public health was able to recategorize a number of cases previously listed as active as closed over the weekend, leading to the number of active cases in the province and in the north dropping by half. Close to half of all active cases in the province are still in the NRHA.
Throughout the north, cases continued to grow, with the highest number of new cases reported in the Thompson/Mystery Lake and Lynn Lake/Marcel Colomb/Leaf Rapids/O-Pipon-Na-Piwin/Granville Lake districts. Seventeen new cases of COVID-19 were reported in the Thompson district, pushing active cases in the region up to 85, while 14 new cases in the Lynn Lake region pushed the region s active cases to 98, despite a big jump in the number of people recovering in the district. The majority of cases in northern Manitoba are still tied to outbreaks in remote Indigenous communities, but larger centres, including The Pas/OCN, Cross Lake, Thompson, Flin Flon and Norway House still have per-capita case loads well over the provincial average. Manitoba has a provincial average of 83 active cases per 100,000 people, but all five of those northern communities are at least three times higher than that mark. Four of them - Flin Flon being the sole exception - are more than four times higher than
These are cautious changes. They are changes we are making to ensure that we can continue to protect and safeguard Manitoba lives. Today is a day of hope. It s a day of optimism, because unlike every other jurisdiction in North America, Manitobans have managed to bend the COVID-19 curve, said Pallister. It is also a day to realize that, as we are able to do this, it will only be sustainable for us if we continue to do our duty and we continue to do the right things - then we will earn the chance to have more days like this as we move forward. We earned this day and Manitobans now have the opportunity to earn more days like it in the future.