As of April 4, Manitoba has administered more than 200,000 total doses of COVID vaccine, including 148,560 first doses and 61,528 second doses. Currently, only first dose appointments are being booked as the government tries to deliver first doses to as many people as possible based on the effectiveness of even a single dose. Appointments are currently available to eligible northern residents, including anyone 64 or older and First Nations people 44 and older, at the Thompson super site, which administered 557 doses in the last full week of March and has provided 2,681 total doses since opening Feb. 1, for an average of 134 per day. Full eligibility criteria is available at https://manitoba.ca/covid19/vaccine/eligibility-criteria.html. Appointments can be booked online with a health card and an email address at https://protectmb.ca or by calling 1-844-626-8222 (1-844-MAN-VACC). Anyone who has been in Manitoba for a month is eligible to be vaccinated.
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.
Hundred-plus new COVID-19 cases in Manitoba March 25, including 53 in the north thompsoncitizen.net - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from thompsoncitizen.net Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
The five-day test positivity rate dropped to 4.4 on Wednesday, down from more than five per cent the previous day. Hospitalizations and intensive care admissions are also dropping. There are 149 Manitobans in hospital due to the virus, 61 of whom have active infections. Ten of those with active infections are in intensive care, as are 11 people who are no longer considered infectious. Twenty-six of those hospitalized are from the north and 21 of them have active infections. Five northerners with active infections are in intensive care, as is one person who is no longer considered infectious. More than 113,000 doses of vaccine have been administered in Manitoba, including 76,612 first doses and 36,663 doses. About 1,500 doses of the AstraZeneca Covishield vaccine have been administered at doctors’ office and pharmacies so far.
“Now the whole world knows that if you wear a mask, if you stay some distance from each other and if you wash your hands not only will you not get COVID but you won t even get the flu,” said Northern Regional Health Authority (NRHA) CEO Helga Bryant in a March 12 interview with the
Thompson Citizen, referencing the fact that during the pandemic, there was essentially no flu season, which came as a relief to health care planners, who had been concerned early on that the pandemic and seasonal flu could combine to put even more strain on the province’s health care system than COVID-19 itself did. “Something as simple as those three things did so much to keep people safe.”