Latest COVID update Sept. 22: Hospitalizations reach record high again

For the fourth straight day, Saskatchewan has set a record for hospitalizations due to COVID-19.

The Ministry of Health said Wednesday there were 265 people in the province’s hospitals because of the virus, including 54 people in intensive care.

For months, the record for COVID hospitalizations in Saskatchewan stood at 238, set Feb. 2. That mark was surpassed Sunday, when 249 people were hospitalized, and that record was broken Monday (253), Tuesday (262) and Wednesday.

Of the total announced Wednesday, 201 weren’t fully vaccinated.

There are 113 COVID patients in Saskatoon-area hospitals, with 26 in ICU. The Regina region has 39 COVID hospitalizations, with nine in ICU.

In hopes of easing the strain on ICUs around the province, the Saskatchewan Health Authority has started admitting adult patients up to the age of 40 into the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit at Saskatoon’s Jim Pattison Children’s Hospital.

The province also announced 426 new cases, 415 recoveries and five deaths in Wednesday’s report. The active caseload rose by six to 4,706.

Fully one-quarter of the new cases — 107 — were among children under the age of 11, a group that isn’t eligible to be vaccinated.

The deaths were reported in the Regina, Saskatoon, far northwest, north-central and central-east regions.

The latest fatalities were two people in the 80-and-over age group, two individuals between the ages of 60 and 79 and one person in the 40-to-59 age range. To date, 651 Saskatchewan residents have died due to COVID-19.

It was the 18th straight day Saskatchewan has reported at least one death due to COVID. The virus has claimed 41 residents of the province in that span.

A look at the numbers

The new cases were reported in the Saskatoon (91), Regina (64), northwest (60), central-east (42), north-central (29), southeast (26), far northeast (22), south-central (16), far northwest (15), central-west (14), southwest (14) and northeast (seven) zones. The hometowns of 26 cases are still being determined.

Of the new cases, 340 were unvaccinated, a total that also included 59 children between the ages of 12 and 19 and 51 people aged 20 to 29.

The new cases also included 74 people who were fully vaccinated and 12 people who were partially vaccinated.

To date, 63,415 cases of COVID have been reported in Saskatchewan along with 58,058 recoveries.

The seven-day average of new cases was 467, or 38.8 per 100,000 population.

The province said 3,722 new COVID vaccinations were done, including 2,130 first doses. It’s the fifth straight day that first doses equalled or exceeded second doses.

To date, 1,527,271 COVID shots have been given in the province and 720,984 people are considered fully vaccinated.