The province is announcing four deaths related to COVID-19.

Dr. Brent Roussin, Manitoba's Chief Public Health Officer, says people with questions over the Public Health Orders can go to the province's website. 

The doctor says while there are very few listings of public places of worship COVID-19 exposures, during the fall there was a large amount of community transmission, making it difficult to pinpoint where the virus was originating from. He says "the virus does not have any regard for how important things are to people."

The doctor says follownig the fundamentals will help prevent the spread. He says the province is focusing on risk when looking at more reopenings. 

"Moving forward, we are going to have to keep that in mind as we loosen restrictions."

Public health officials advise four additional deaths in people with COVID-19 has been reported today:
• a male in his 60s from the Winnipeg health region;
• a male in his 70 from the Winnipeg health region, linked to the outbreak at St. Boniface Hospital unit B5;
• a male in his 90s from the Winnipeg health region; and
• a female in her 90s from the Winnipeg health region.

The current five-day COVID-19 test positivity rate is 5.9 per cent provincially and 4.5 per cent in Winnipeg. As of 9:30 a.m. today, 167 new cases of the virus have been identified. These include cases from the holiday Monday and Tuesday. However, one case has been removed due to a data correction. This brings the net-new number of cases today to 166 and the total number of lab-confirmed cases in Manitoba to 30,932.

Today’s COVID-19 data shows:
• 13 cases in Interlake–Eastern health region;
• 93 cases in the Northern health region; 
• two case in the Prairie Mountain Health region; 
• eight cases in the Southern Health–Santé Sud health region; and 
• 51 cases in the Winnipeg health region.
 
Case investigations continue and if a public health risk is identified, the public will be notified.

The data also shows:
• 1,625 active cases and 28,432 individuals who have recovered from COVID-19;
• 86 people in hospital with active COVID-19 as well as 144 people in hospital with COVID-19 who are no longer infectious but continue to require care, for a total of 230 hospitalizations;
• 13 people in intensive care units with active COVID-19 as well as 13 people with COVID-19 who are no longer infectious but continue to require critical care for a total of 26 ICU patients; and
• the total number of deaths in people with COVID-19 is 875.

Laboratory testing numbers show 1,390 tests were completed yesterday, bringing the total number of lab tests completed since early February 2020 to 503,523.