Manitoba's top doctor has hinted that tougher restrictions might be coming to fight the spread of COVID-19 in the province.

Chief Provincial Public Health Officer Dr. Brent Roussin says case numbers have been increasing over the last couple of weeks and the test positivity rate keeps climbing.

"Certainly if we are not following the fundamentals such as distancing, we know the variants of concern are much more transmissible," states Dr. Roussin. "And we are starting to see the B117 variant become more and more prevalent in Manitoba. So we want people to take as much precaution as they can."

Dr. Roussin says right now with their contact tracing investigations, they are discovering that people are holding larger gatherings in their private residences, hosting house parties, sleepovers and play dates.

"We're seeing cases with many more contacts than we saw in recent past and we're seeing this contribute to the transmission of the virus," adds Dr. Roussin.

He notes it seems when the province loosens restrictions and allows essential activities, enabling people to get back to some of the things they love and enjoy, people, unfortunately, treat that as a return to normal.

"So we continue to see transmission in all of our concerning places," says Dr. Roussin. "This is that prolonged indoor contact and we just know that. We see clusters occurring in faith-based gatherings, and again not a reflection of anything but this virus."

Dr. Roussin says nothing is yet definitive, but they could look to tighten restrictions on private gatherings and/ or mandating mask use for outdoor gatherings.

"We're looking at things right now," he says. "There will be more to come this week on our approach to this, but certainly it's important to get that messaging out right now that this is a third wave for us."

He notes if case numbers continue to climb, they will need to consider introducing tougher restrictions sooner rather than later.

Dr. Roussin says if they look at other jurisdictions within this third wave, a greater proportion of people being admitted to hospital require ICU admission. As well, younger people are requiring ICU admission and there are longer hospital and ICU stays.