Dr. Jazz Atwal is asking for Manitobans to "save summer."

During a Friday press conference, Manitoba's Deputy Chief Public Health Officer says while most Manitobans are following the health orders, small things are making difference in case numbers.

"I think a lot of individuals do have that lax moment," Atwal says. "We can go out in groups of 10 outdoors but do we want to have baseball games occurring with 20 people playing baseball and a bunch of groups of 10 watching them play baseball?"

Habits such as sharing food, carpooling, and handshaking are all risky behaviours despite not having restrictions. 

Many previous cases have been linked to sleepovers and household gatherings.

"Let's really limit those interactions. Take a step back. The next few weeks is very important to prevent that lockdown from happening. Otherwise, that is sort of the road we are going down with these cases going up."

He says to avoid this and to "save summer" Manitobans must remain diligent, going beyond the health order limitations to keep transmission down. Atwal says the lower the case numbers, the fewer restrictions, which will be difficult as Manitoba sees more highly transmittable COVID-19 variant strains. 

 

New cases

Public health advises of possible exposures to the B.1.1.7 variant of concern at Sioux Valley Community Church, Sioux Valley Dakota Nation at 11 a.m. on April 11 and at Skownan Hall, Skownan First Nation on April 12.

The outbreak has been declared over at Boissevain School in Boissevain.

Public health officials advise that two new deaths in people with COVID -19 have been reported today:
• a male in his 50s from Winnipeg health region; and
• a male in his 70s from the Winnipeg health region, linked to the B.1.1.7 variant of concern.

The current five-day COVID-19 test positivity rate is 6.5 per cent provincially and 6.8 per cent in Winnipeg. As of 9:30 a.m. today, 181 new cases of the virus have been identified. However, two cases have been removed due to data correction. This brings the net-new number of cases today to 179 and the total number of lab-confirmed cases in Manitoba to 37,069. 

Today’s COVID-19 data shows:
• nine cases in the Interlake–Eastern health region; 
• 29 cases in the Northern health region;  
• 19 cases in the Prairie Mountain Health region;  
• 21 cases in the Southern Health–Santé Sud health region; and  
• 103 cases in the Winnipeg health region.
 
The data also shows:
• 1,739 active cases and 34,366 individuals who have recovered from COVID-19;
• 73 people in hospital with active COVID-19 as well as 71 people in hospital with COVID-19 who are no longer infectious but continue to require care, for a total of 144 hospitalizations; 
• 21 people in intensive care units with active COVID-19 as well as 14 people with COVID-19 who are no longer infectious but continue to require critical care, for a total of 35 ICU patients;
• 3,581 laboratory tests were completed yesterday, bringing the total number of lab tests completed since early February 2020 to 637,894; and
• the total number of deaths in people with COVID-19 is 964.