Latest COVID update April 24: 286 new cases, 2 deaths, 392,294 total vaccinations

The Saskatchewan government is reporting 286 new cases of COVID-19, 194 recoveries and two deaths in the province.

The people who died were in the 70 to 79 age group from the Regina zone. To date, 473 people in Saskatchewan have died as a result of the virus.

There are 186 patients with the coronavirus in hospital. There are 51 in intensive care units, one less than the record high of 52 set on Friday.

There are 34 ICU cases in the Regina region, 11 in the Saskatoon area, three in the north-central, two in the central-east and one in the southwest zones.

There are 135 people receiving inpatient care in the far northeast (one), northwest (11), north-central (seven), Saskatoon (46), central-east (five), Regina (52), southwest (three), south-central (three) and southeast (seven) zones.

The number of new cases involving variants of concern in the province is 189.

As of Saturday, 5,880 variants of concern have been identified.

Those cases have been identified in the far northwest (69), far northeast (two), northwest (140), north-central (85), northeast (10), Saskatoon region (600), central-west (77), central-east (248),  Regina region (3,382), southwest (151), south-central (444) and (607) in the South East zone. There are also 65 screened variant cases that have a pending location.

The province’s new cases are located in the far northwest (15), northwest (28), north-central (25), northeast (4), Saskatoon (55), central-west (one), central-east (16), Regina (90), southwest (18), south-central (10) and southeast (15) zones. Previously reported cases have also been assigned to the north-central (two), northwest (one), Saskatoon (one) and Regina (seven) zones.

Saturday’s COVID update has nine new cases where the location is still under investigation.

There were 4,321 COVID-19 tests processed in Saskatchewan on Friday.

To date, 749,756 COVID-19 tests have been processed in the province. As of Thursday, when other provincial and national numbers were available, Saskatchewan’s per capita rate was 628,277 tests performed per million population. The national rate was 804,081 tests performed per million population.

As of Saturday, the seven-day daily average of new cases in the province stands at 257,  or 21 cases per 100,000 people.

Vaccination update

The latest round of vaccinations in the province saw 10,159 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine administered, bringing the total in the province to 392,294.

The doses of COVID-19 vaccine reported Saturday were given to people living in the far northwest (346), far northeast (253), northwest (930), north-central (859), northeast (552), Saskatoon (3,277), central-west (458), central-east (529), Regina (627), southwest (871), south-central (233) and southeast (908) zones.

There were also 316 doses administered that don’t have a location registered yet.

To date, 56 per cent of Saskatchewan residents age 40 and over and 37 per cent of residents 18 and over have received their first dose of vaccines.

In total, 30 per cent of people in Saskatchewan’s have gotten their first dose.