Active cases in Flin Flon district drop to seven, cases rise in north, The Pas outbreak declared

The number of active COVID-19 cases in the Flin Flon district is now down to single digits.

The Flin Flon/Snow Lake/Cranberry Portage/Sherridon health district, which reported a high of 20 active cases last week, is now down to seven active cases as of Jan. 28. A new case of COVID-19 has not been reported in the district for over a week.

The district covers just over 6,500 people in the area around Flin Flon, more than three quarters of whom are in the Flin Flon area. A total of 4,982 people in the Manitoba portion of Flin Flon, along with 899 permanent residents in Snow Lake, 572 residents in Cranberry Portage and another 80 residents of Sherridon are part of the district.

A new outbreak of COVID-19 was declared in northern Manitoba Jan. 28, at the St. Paul's Personal Care Home in The Pas. New, tighter restrictions have been announced for the site after a staff member at the home tested positive for COVID-19. Vaccinations were made available to consenting residents at the St. Paul's Personal Care Home last week.

Province-wide, northern Manitoba is continuing to see cases of COVID-19 rise to higher and higher levels. In total, 1,808 people in the Northern Health Region (NHR) have active cases of COVID-19, more than half of whom are in two health districts - the Island Lake district, where the number of active cases now sits at 733, and the Shamattawa/York Factory/Tataskweyak/Split Lake district, which now has 364 active cases according to provincial data.

Seven districts - Grand Rapids/Misipawistik/Moose Lake/Mosakahiken/Easterville/Chemawawin, Cross Lake/Pimicikamak, Lynn Lake/Marcel Colomb/Leaf Rapids/O-Pipon-Na-Piwin/Granville Lake, Thompson/Mystery Lake, The Pas/OCN/Kelsey, Norway House and Gillam/Fox Lake - have at least 20 active cases of COVID-19. The district covering Thompson now has 86 active cases, while the district covering The Pas/OCN now has 70 active cases according to provincial data.

While the north remains Manitoba's COVID-19 hotbed, other regions are falling back to normal after months of high case numbers. Manitoba reported a total of 132 new cases Jan. 28, of which 71 cases were reported in southern communities. Manitoba's five-day test positivity rate has shrunk to 8.7 per cent, while rates for Winnipeg have shrunk to 5.4 per cent in the last five days.

Manitoba announced eight more deaths from COVID-19 Thursday, all in southern communities - since the pandemic began, 821 Manitobans have died from COVID-19. There are now 277 people hospitalized throughout Manitoba due to COVID-19, with 37 people now in intensive care due to the disease. In the NHR, 37 people are in hospital due to COVID-19, including five people in need of intensive care.

Saskatchewan

Saskatchewan reported 11 deaths from COVID-19 Jan. 28, including two deaths from the far north east health zones - one in a person in their 40s, another in a person in their 70s. Fourteen new cases of COVID-19 were reported in the far north east health zone, two of which were found in the far north east 2 health zone which includes Creighton, Denare Beach, Pelican Narrows and Sandy Bay. The far north east 2 zone now has 33 active COVID-19 cases, the same as were reported Wednesday - two previous cases in the zone have now been marked as recovered.