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One day after the chief medical health officer said Saskatchewan was “headed for a fall and winter of misery” due to COVID-19, the province reported its highest single-day total of new cases ever as well as 10 more deaths.
During a media conference Wednesday, Dr. Saqib Shahab said the province wouldn’t have Thanksgiving and perhaps Christmas and New Year’s at the rate cases are going. About 24 hours later, the Ministry of Health announced 601 new cases, breaking the previous record of 552 set Sunday.
There were 12,972 new cases reported in Saskatchewan in the month of September, nearly a fifth of the 67,339 cases recorded in the province since the pandemic started in March of 2020.
The 10 deaths announced Thursday were all in the 80-and-over age group. Three of the individuals lived in the Saskatoon region, two lived in each of the northeast, central-east and Regina zones, and one was from the southwest.
Saskatchewan has reported at least one COVID-related death on 26 straight days and on 29 of the 30 days in September. A total of 92 people died of the virus during the month, raising the province’s death toll due to COVID to 695.
The province also set a record for intensive care admissions, with 72. There are 307 COVID patients in Saskatchewan health-care facilities.
A look at the numbers
The new cases were reported in the Saskatoon (165), Regina (98), northwest (65), north-central (45), southeast (43), southwest (34), far northwest (34), central-east (25), south-central (24), far northeast (14), northeast (14) and central-west (seven) zones.
The hometowns of 33 cases are still being determined.
The new cases were detected among 4,375 tests, for a test positivity rate of 13.7.
Of the total number of new cases, 520 (or 86.5 per cent) weren’t vaccinated, 68 were fully vaccinated and 13 were partially vaccinated.
The unvaccinated cases included 127 children under the age of 11 (who currently aren’t eligible to be vaccinated), 95 people in their 30s, 89 people in their 20s, 59 individuals between the ages of 40 and 49, 49 people aged 50 to 59, and 46 children aged 12 to 19.
The seven-day average of new cases climbed to 488.
The active caseload rose for the first time in three days, to 4,669. There were 508 recoveries reported, increasing that total to date to 61,975.
Vaccination update
There were 4,792 doses of COVID vaccine administered in the province, including 2,643 first doses and 2,149 second doses.
It’s the 13th straight day first doses have equalled or outnumbered second doses.
To date, more than 1.55 million shots have been given in the province and more than 734,000 people are considered fully vaccinated.
Of the 307 hospitalizations reported Thursday, 228 (74.3 per cent) of the patients weren’t fully vaccinated.