Saskatchewan reports 19 COVID-related deaths, 710 new cases

Saskatchewan has reported another 19 deaths due to COVID-19.

The Ministry of Health’s weekly epidemiology report said 16 of the deaths occurred between May 1 and Saturday. The other three occurred in previous weeks, but were reported during the last week.

The report also said there were 710 new COVID cases detected through laboratory testing, the lowest total since the province moved to weekly reporting in early February.

As well, there were 321 people with COVID in Saskatchewan hospitals, the fewest since mid-March. The total comprised 125 patients with COVID-related illnesses, 186 incidental COVID infections and 10 cases that were under investigation.

A look at the numbers

There were seven deaths reported in the Regina zone, five in the Saskatoon region, four in the central-east zone, and one in each of the northeast, central-west and southeast regions.

There were six deaths in the 80-and-over age range, five among people in their 70s, and four in each of the 40-to-59 and 60-to-69 age ranges.

As of Saturday, 1,343 Saskatchewan residents had died due to COVID.

The 321 people with COVID in Saskatchewan hospitals as of Wednesday represented a decrease of 69 from the previous week. There were 16 people with COVID in intensive care units, four fewer than the week before.

The provincial rate of 30.3 patients with a COVID-like illness per 1,000 visits to emergency rooms was lower than the previous six-week average of 38.4 and the lowest since mid-March. The rate for preschool children was 63.3 per 1,000 visits.

The new cases were reported in the Saskatoon (210), Regina (123), central-east (71), southeast (66), northwest (65), north-central (42), south-central (30), southwest (18), northeast (17), central-west (14), far northwest (11), far northeast (seven) and far north-central (one) zones. The hometowns of 35 cases were pending.

The new cases don’t include positive results detected through rapid antigen tests.

The test positivity rate during the week was 7.6 per cent, a significant drop from the 10.1 per cent in the previous week.

The ministry noted other respiratory viruses currently have a higher test positivity in Saskatchewan than COVID, including respiratory syncytial virus (14 per cent), influenza (12 per cent) and enterorhinovirus (11 per cent).

There were 252 new lineage results reported during the week, all of them Omicron. The BA.2 sublineage accounted for 94.8 per cent of the variants of concern reported during the week.

There were 10 confirmed COVID outbreaks reported during the week in long-term care (five) and care home (five) settings.

Vaccination update

From May 1 through Saturday, 23,380 doses of COVID vaccine were administered in the province. Of those, 97 per cent were third and fourth booster shots.

As of Saturday, 52.2 per cent of those 18 and over in the province had received at least one booster shot.