2 COVID-related deaths in Manitoba and hospitalizations drop by 5

There are two more COVID-19-related deaths and five fewer people in hospital in Manitoba on Tuesday, the province's online dashboard says.

There are now 697 people in hospital with the virus, including 40 in ICU, down seven from the day before.

The latest deaths come from the Winnipeg health region and bring the total in Manitoba for the pandemic to 1,602.

The province reports 413 new COVID-19 cases on Tuesday, although public health officials have repeatedly said those numbers are a significant undercount of the total number of active cases. Manitoba is restricting access to PCR tests at provincial sites and doesn't track most rapid test results.

The Winnipeg health region has 168 new cases. There are 100 in the Northern Health Region, 69 in the Prairie Mountain Health region and 38 each in the Interlake-Eastern and Southern Health regions.

On Monday, 1,545 PCR tests were done in Manitoba.

The province's five-day test positivity rate held steady at 27.3 per cent.

As of Tuesday, 80.4 per cent of Manitobans age five and up have at least two doses of the vaccine and 41.8 per cent have three.