Province announcing 70 COVID cases, 2 deaths Wednesday

The number of COVID-19 hospitalizations continues to follow a steady decline.

As of Wednesday morning, there are 70 new COVID-19 cases in Manitoba including:

• 29 cases in the Winnipeg health region
• 20 cases in the Northern health region
• 12 cases in the Southern Health–Santé Sud health region
• seven cases in the Interlake-Eastern health region
• two cases in the Prairie Mountain Health region

Of the province's total 56,167 cases, 53,631 individuals have recovered and 1,395 cases are active.

Two people have died, including a male in his 30s from Interlake-Eastern health region, linked to an unspecified variant of concern and a female in her 60s from the Winnipeg health region, linked to the B.1.1.7 (alpha) variant of concern. There is a total of 1,141 COVID-19 deaths in Manitoba.

There are 173 Manitobans who are hospitalized. This includes:

• 164 hospitalizations in Manitoba, with 77 people in hospital in Manitoba with active COVID-19 and 87 people who are no longer infectious
• 46 people are in intensive care in Manitoba, 19 people have active cases and 27 people who are no longer infectious
• nine people from Manitoba are in Ontario's intensive care

In Manitoba, the current five-day COVID-19 test positivity rate is 6.2 per cent and 5.6 per cent in Winnipeg.