Four Sask. players named to Canada world junior hockey championship team
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For the first time in nearly two weeks, Saskatchewan reported more than 200 new cases of COVID-19 on Thursday.
The Ministry of Health said there were 211 new cases, the first time since Feb. 13 the province had surpassed the 200 barrier.
A person in the 80-and-over age group who lived in the northwest zone died, bringing the number of Saskatchewan residents who have died due to COVID to 380.
The new cases reported Thursday were in the Regina (80), Saskatoon (37), far northwest (24), northwest (16), central-east (13), south-central (seven), far north-central (six), north-central (five), central-west (five), southeast (four), far northeast (three), northeast (three) and southwest (one) areas.
The hometowns of seven cases are still being determined.
The seven-day average of new cases is 155, or 12.7 per 100,000 population. To date, there have been 28,191 cases of COVID in the province.
There were 142 recoveries reported Thursday, hiking that total so far to 26,318. There are 1,493 active cases being reported in Saskatchewan, including 457 in the Regina area and 298 in the Saskatoon region.
Hospitalizations in Saskatchewan dropped to 156, the lowest level since Jan. 3.
There are 18 people in intensive care in the province, with nine in the Saskatoon area, six in the Regina region, two in the northwest zone and one in the north-central area.
“While our deaths along with our hospitalizations have been trending down thankfully, the fact that we are still losing individuals to COVID and are still seeing hospitalizations emphasizes that we really need to stay the course,” Dr. Saqib Shahab, Saskatchewan’s chief medical health officer, said during a media conference.
“(That’s true) especially because we have also seen over the last week that we have found increased (instances) of variants of concern not just linked to international travel but showing some initial start of community transmission.”
Shahab reiterated people must follow public health measures if the province is to keep cases of the variants low — there currently are six confirmed cases and one presumptive case — before the mass vaccination of the public begins in April.
“Even though our case numbers are coming down, we can’t go back to where we were with the same case numbers like in late summer (or) early fall,” Shahab said.
“We have to be extra-vigilant for variants, but on the other hand, we’re obviously very optimistic in our vaccination program.”
The 3,104 tests processed in Saskatchewan on Wednesday hiked the total so far to 568,314. However, Saskatchewan’s per-capita rate of 476,923 tests per million population is well off the national rate of 630,137 tests per million population.
Vaccination update
There were 2,057 vaccinations done in Saskatchewan on Wednesday, increasing the total to date to 65,436.
The majority of the new vaccinations were done in the Regina region, with 1,197 shots given.
The others were done in the Saskatoon (351), southeast (316), south-central (134), far north-central (30), central-east (13), northeast (10) and northwest (six) zones.
According to the provincial government, 85 per cent of residents in long-term care homes have received their first doses and 49 per cent have been given both shots and are now fully vaccinated.