Murray Wood: Who's hot and who's not
Every Friday, Murray Wood takes a look at the week's news and decides who's hot and who's not. This week's list includes...
The deaths of five Saskatchewan residents due to COVID-19 were reported Friday, one day after eight fatalities were announced by the Ministry of Health.
As of Wednesday, Saskatchewan had the highest rate of deaths over the past 14 days among Canadian provinces, at 3.9. Alberta was next at 2.1.
Three of the deaths announced Friday were in the 40-to-59 age group and two of the people were between the ages of 60 and 79. Two individuals were from the Regina zone, with one from each of the far northwest, southeast and central-east regions.
Six of the deaths Thursday were in the 60-to-79 age group, with two between the ages of 40 and 59.
To date, 891 Saskatchewan residents have died as a result of COVID.
The Ministry of Health also reported 122 cases Friday and 182 cases Thursday.
Hospitalizations due to COVID on Friday increased by two from the previous day, to 180. That included 133 inpatient cases and 47 patients in intensive care.
There are 13 Saskatchewan patients being treated in ICUs in Ontario, after one was returned to Saskatchewan.
A look at the numbers
The cases reported Friday were in the central-east (27), Regina (25), Saskatoon (21), southeast (13), north-central (11), northwest (eight), southwest (five), south-central (four) and far northwest (one) zones.
The hometowns of seven cases weren’t identified.
Among the new cases were 93 people who weren’t vaccinated, including 34 kids under the age of 11. There also were 26 cases among people who were considered fully vaccinated and three in individuals who were partially vaccinated.
The cases announced Friday were detected in 1,690 tests, resulting in a test positivity rate of 7.2.
To date, there have been 79,334 cases reported in Saskatchewan along with 77,000 recoveries.
The number of active cases increased Friday for the second straight day, rising to 1,443. There were 277 active cases in Saskatoon, 260 in Regina and 217 in the central-east zone.
The seven-day average of new COVID-19 cases dropped to 134, or 11.2 per 100,000 people in the province.
The 2,749 doses of COVID vaccine administered Friday included 815 first shots and 1,934 second shots. There have been 1,697,253 shots given so far in Saskatchewan, with 816,961 second shots.
