There are 359 people in the hospital with COVID-19, including 19 people in the intensive care unit – an increase for one patient. The COVID-19 data control panel, which is updated daily, will no longer be updated after this week, the province announced on Thursday. The province transfers the information to a weekly epidemiological report, which does not include daily numbers and is published one week late. Manitobans will no longer have access to daily real-time COVID-19 data. The CBC asked for comments from the Chief District Director of Public Health Dr. Brent Roussin and Acting Deputy Director of Public Health of the province Dr. Jazz Atwal on how Manitobans can make risk assessments without daily data. Both requests were rejected. The county also rejected CBC requests for a speedy sharing of wastewater monitoring data, which is collected by the federal government and given to the county regularly. Weekly epidemiological reports for COVID-19 have been published online since May 2020. The next one will be available on March 31st. The data will be from the week from March 20 to March 26. Next week’s data will not be published until April 7. A total of 153 new laboratory-confirmed cases were reported on Friday, a measure due to limited access to PCR tests and the lack of follow-up of rapid screening results. On March 20, the province closed 18 test sites. There are 3,830 cases reported as active. This is also a countdown. The five-day provincial test rate fell marginally to 12.9 percent from 13.1 percent. This number is also affected by limited testing capacity. To date, 1,739 people in Manitoba have died from COVID-19. The provincial vaccine control panel will continue to be updated until March 31st. After that, vaccine data will be available weekly in the epidemiology report. A total of 86.4 percent of eligible Manitobans have one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, 82.7 percent have two doses and 44.6 percent have three doses.
