Manitoba's top doctor says vaccine uptake will have to be higher before our province begins lifting mandates such as proof of vaccination.

Public health officials announced 162 new cases of COVID-19 on Wednesday. Of those, 57 are in the Southern Health region.

When you look at the vaccine uptake, 84.4 per cent of eligible Manitobans are now fully vaccinated. Within Southern Health, it is 68.8 per cent.

Dr. Brent Roussin, Chief Provincial Public Health Officer says Manitoba could consider phasing out mandates when the risk of transmission is no longer overwhelming the health care system. He notes currently, with the level of vaccine and the rate of transmission, Manitoba is still at risk.

"So we need to ensure we have these restrictions in place including the proof of vaccine requirement," he points out. "Once we get to a level of vaccination, a level of susceptibility in the population, level of transmission in the population that doesn't put us at risk for overwhelming the health care system, that's when we can start cautiously rolling back."

When asked what sort of benchmarks Manitobans can look for, to know if we are trending close to those targets, Dr. Roussin was non-committal.

"Even if you have high uptake but still very low levels of uptake in certain areas, you can still be at risk," he notes. "So it's hard to put a specific benchmark."

However, he did say that vaccine uptake certainly needs to be higher than where it currently sits.

Last week, a new public health order was introduced in Manitoba, which places tighter restrictions on religious gatherings in Southern Health, and will soon require children aged 12 to 17 to be vaccinated in order to play indoor recreation sports. Unlike previous public health orders that had an end date, the new orders will be in place until terminated. Dr. Roussin was asked today whether additional restrictions might be coming yet before Christmas.

"It's hard to predict," he says. "What we know is our trajectory is not in the right direction right now. We know that our health care system is continually at risk of being overwhelmed."

As of Wednesday there are 30 patients in Manitoba receiving intensive care for COVID-19.

Meanwhile, an outbreak was declared earlier at Fernwood Place in Steinbach. As of today, there are five cases at that facility, including one staff.