Over the long weekend, more than two dozen cases of COVID-19 were found within Manitoba. Aside from that, little other information has been made available.
Tweets from the official Manitoba government account gave brief updates over the weekend, updating only case numbers and providing no extra details. Two cases were found August 1, but numbers jumped on Sunday and Monday, with 18 cases found August 2 and another seven August 3. Manitoba has now reported 442 total cases of COVID-19.
As of August 3, the provincial government had not updated statistics for three days and would not announce further updates until August 4.
The number of new cases reported August 2 is the highest number of cases found in the province in one day since the original spike of COVID-19 in late March and early April.
Without confirmed information from the province, new information about COVID-19 cases has slipped into anecdotes coming from outside. According to media reports, two cases of COVID-19 were found in Steinbach and were linked to businesses including a local credit union. No public health advisories were issued by the province over the weekend.
According to the provincial government COVID-19 information dashboard, the Northern Health Region (NHR) has still only reported three cases of COVID-19. No new cases of COVID-19 have been reported in the region since April 8. If no new cases are found in the region as of this coming Saturday, the north will have gone four months without a new case of COVID-19. The dashboard, as of August 3, had not been updated since July 31.
Saskatchewan
Manitoba’s western neighbour continues to report high numbers of COVID-19 cases, but the number of people recovering from the disease is keeping pace.
Seventeen new people were reported as having COVID-19 August 3, with the cases spread out between Regina and the north, central and southern regions. The south reported six cases, while five were found in central Saskatchewan, four in the north and two in Regina.
Over the past week, most new cases have been found in southern Saskatchewan. Several of the cases have been reported in what the province has referred to as “communal living settings”. Nine of the cases reported August 3 were from such arrangements.
Recoveries have remained high, on some days outpacing the number of new cases. The number of active cases in the province has steadily declined, going from 322 on July 29 to 252 on August 3. Since COVID-19 cases in Saskatchewan began to spike July 22, 389 new cases of COVID-19 have been reported, but 264 people have recovered.
In total, 1,359 people in Saskatchewan have tested positive for COVID-19, more than three times as many people as Manitoba.
While the far north was formerly a hub for the disease, the region now has the fewest active cases of any Saskatchewan region and is the only region to see a decrease from a month ago. Only four people, confined to the western portion of the province, still have COVID-19. No cases have been reported within Saskatchewan communities near Flin Flon. Including the north region of Saskatchewan, 53 cases of the disease are still active. Several of the cases in the north region have been linked to a Hutterite colony in the RM of Star City, not far from Melfort.
Testing has gone up in Saskatchewan, with the province recording more than 2,000 tests in a day for the first time during the pandemic August 1. The province recorded 1,170 tests for COVID-19 August 3.
