52 new cases of COVID-19 in Manitoba Wednesday, half in Southern Health region

Manitoba has 52 new COVID-19 cases and no new deaths from the illness,according to a Wednesday update on the province's online dashboard.

TheSouthern Health region, which has the lowest vaccine uptake in the province, has the highest number of new cases, with 26.

There are 14 cases in the Winnipeg health region, six in the Northern Health Region, fourin the Interlake-Eastern health region and twoin the Prairie Mountain Health region, according to the province's online update.

There are still 74 COVID-19 patients in Manitoba hospitals unchanged from Tuesday including 15 in intensive care, up by three from the day before.

Of the 52 new cases reported Wednesday,36 are people who werenot vaccinated against COVID-19 and three were partially vaccinated, the province's dashboard says. The remaining 13 cases were people who were fully vaccinated.

Of those currently in hospital with the illness, 84 per cent are unvaccinated, the dashboard says, and 10 per cent are partially vaccinated.

None of the patients currently in intensive care with COVID-19 are fully vaccinated. Seventy-eight per cent of ICU COVID-19 patients are unvaccinated and the remaining 22 per cent are partially vaccinated.

The Manitoba government no longer holds news conferences or sends news releases on Wednesdays to update case numbers, although some figures areavailable online. News releases are sent on Mondays and Thursdays.

The province's five-day test positivity rate went up slightly from 2.7 per cent on Tuesday to 2.8per cent on Wednesday.

No information about the Winnipeg test positivity rate is provided on the COVID-19 data site. That rate was 1.4 per cent on Tuesday, the last time it was updated.

On Tuesday, 2,049 COVID-19 tests were done.

As of Wednesday, there are 438 active cases. There have been59,052 cases since the start of the pandemic and 57,416 people have recovered from the illness,the dashboard says.

The number of deaths due to COVID-19 in Manitoba remains at1,198, including 196 related to variants of concern.

The province'sonline variant dashboardon Wednesday said seven more COVID-19 cases have been linked to the more contagious coronavirus variants, and there are now207 active cases stemming from thosevariants.

Thevariant type has yet to be determined in all seven new cases.

As of Wednesday, 83 per cent of eligible Manitobans have received at least one dose of the vaccine and 78 per cent have had both, the province's vaccination dashboard says.

Two mobile vaccination clinics will be held in Winnipeg parks this weekend, the province says.

One will be held in the Assiniboine Park pavilion parking lot from noon to 5 p.m. on Saturday. On Sunday, another will be held at Kildonan Park, on the service road between the pool and the Rainbow Stage, from noon to 5 p.m.