The death toll in Saskatchewan due to COVID-19 rose to 329 on Thursday, when the provincial government announced seven fatalities.
Two residents of the Saskatoon area in the 80-and-over age group died. The other deaths were two people in their 50s (one each from the far northwest and northwest zones), two individuals in their 60s (one from the northwest zone, one from the Saskatoon area) and a person in their 70s (from the south-central area).
The province also announced there were 250 new cases, 232 recoveries and 723 vaccinations.
Shipments of the Pfizer vaccine arrived in Saskatchewan on Wednesday and immediately started going into people’s arms.
The doses were administered in the north-central (392), Saskatoon (198), northwest (83), far northeast (22), far north-central (17) and central-east (11) zones. As well, an additional 41 doses — 22 in the far northeast and 19 in the Regina area — were added to Tuesday’s total after further number-crunching.
The total number of vaccinations given in the province to date is 36,527.
A shipment of 6,000 Moderna doses is to arrive in Regina on Friday. They’re destined for the far north and north zones as second doses and to Kindersley and Rosetown for first doses.
The new cases reported Thursday were in the Saskatoon (49), Regina (44), far northeast (37), northwest (24), north-central (22), central-east (17), southeast (11), far northwest (10), central-west (10), south-central (10), far north-central (six) and northeast (five) zones. The hometowns of five cases are being investigated.
The seven-day average of daily new cases is 234, or 19.1 per 100,000 population.
Saskatchewan’s total number of cases to date is 24,680.
The recoveries reported Thursday increased the total to date to 22,086. The active caseload in the province rose to 2,265.
The province reported 216 people were in hospital, the third-highest single-day total since the pandemic started.
The hospitalizations included 30 people in intensive care — 13 in the Saskatoon area, 10 in the Regina region, four in the central-east zone, two in the northwest and one in the north-central zone.
Of the 186 people receiving inpatient care, 70 are in the Saskatoon area, 43 are in the Regina zone and 26 are in the north-central region.
The 2,464 COVID-19 tests processed in Saskatchewan on Wednesday increased the province’s total so far to 517,756.
As of Tuesday, Saskatchewan’s per-capita rate was 437,178 tests performed per million population, well below the national rate of 573,569 per million population.