No new deaths connected to COVID-19 were reported in Manitoba Tuesday but health official say 77 more people have fallen ill with the virus.

The latest cases bring the province’s five-day test positivity rate to 4.3 per cent while in Winnipeg, where 43 new cases were reported, the number was 3.5 per cent.

The other new cases include 27 in the Northern Health region, five in the Southern Health region, and one each in the Prairie Mountain and Interlake-Eastern Health regions.

Manitoba has now recorded 34,052 lab-confirmed cases of COVID-19 since last March and the province’s death toll from the virus remains at 934.

Provincial data shows 1,197 cases remain active and 31,921 people have recovered from COVID-19.

There are currently 150 people in hospital as a result of novel coronavirus and 31 patients in ICU connected to the virus, according to health officials.

While 11 new screened or sequenced cases of variants of concern were reported Tuesday, the total number of variants reported in Manitoba fell from 259 Monday to 250, after the province says a processing error led to incorrect numbers being reported to the media that day.

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The latest variants of concern include one in the Interlake-Eastern Health region, three in the Southern Health region, and seven from the Winnipeg Health region.

The total number of confirmed cases of variants of concern in Manitoba include 199 cases of the B.1.1.7 strain, first identified in the United Kingdom, 14 cases of the B.1.351 strain, first identified in South Africa, and 37 that health officials say have not been categorized.

Laboratory testing numbers show 1,163 tests were completed Monday, bringing the total number of lab tests completed since early February 2020 to 580,442.

Manitoba announced 53 new cases and no additional deaths from the virus on Monday.

Questions about COVID-19? Here are some things you need to know:

Symptoms can include fever, cough and difficulty breathing — very similar to a cold or flu. Some people can develop a more severe illness. People most at risk of this include older adults and people with severe chronic medical conditions like heart, lung or kidney disease. If you develop symptoms, contact public health authorities.

To prevent the virus from spreading, experts recommend frequent handwashing and coughing into your sleeve. They also recommend minimizing contact with others, staying home as much as possible and maintaining a distance of two metres from other people if you go out. In situations where you can’t keep a safe distance from others, public health officials recommend the use of a non-medical face mask or covering to prevent spreading the respiratory droplets that can carry the virus. In some provinces and municipalities across the country, masks or face coverings are now mandatory in indoor public spaces.

For full COVID-19 coverage from Global News, visit our coronavirus page.