New cases of COVID-19 in Manitoba stayed in the double digits Wednesday, levels of active cases in the north continue to rise and the Flin Flon health district is seeing its own numbers drop.
None of the 36 new cases were found in the Flin Flon/Snow Lake/Cranberry Portage/Sherridon health district. The districts with the most new cases are the Island Lake district - which now has over 700 active cases of COVID-19 according to provincial statistics - and the Bunibonibee/Oxford House/Manto Sipi/Gods River/Gods Lake district. Both reported eight new cases. Six new cases are marked as unknown district , while the Gillam/Fox Lake district reported its own increase of six cases. New cases were also reported in the Cross Lake/Pimicikamak, Grand Rapids/Misipawistik/Moose Lake/Mosakahiken/Easterville/Chemawawin, Lynn Lake/Marcel Colomb/Leaf Rapids/O-Pipon-Na-Piwin/Granville Lake and Thompson/Mystery Lake districts. More details on active cases per district within the NHR can be found below.
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
The news came on a day when the Northern Health Region (NHR) led the province in new cases once again, reporting 84 of Manitoba s 191 new COVID-19 cases reported Jan. 15. Provincial five-day test positivity rates are hovering around 10 per cent, but are decidedly lower in Winnipeg, where 7.2 per cent of tests in the last five days have come up positive. A person has died in the NHR from COVID-19, listed by the provincial government as a man in his 70s from the Lynn Lake/Marcel Colomb/Leaf Rapids/O-Pipon-Na-Piwin/Granville Lake district. The region with the most new cases reported Friday was the Island Lake district, where community spread has pushed the remote district to 391 active cases - an increase of 37 cases, with only one new recovery. Eleven new cases were reported in Thompson/Mystery Lake, but a boost in recoveries offset the new cases, sending the region s active case load down from 79 Thursday to 77 Friday.