Latest COVID update Jan. 21: 1,233 new cases, 9 new deaths

After 14 straight days without a COVID-related death in Saskatchewan, the province reported nine more deaths due to the virus Friday.

The last time the province reported this many deaths was on Oct. 28, 2021, when the province recorded 11 deaths. To date, 969 Saskatchewan residents have died due to COVID.

One person whose death was previously flagged as COVID-19 is no longer considered a COVID-related death and has been removed from the total.

There were no new COVID-related hospitalizations reported to the Ministry of Health. In the daily update from the ministry, the number of hospitalizations remained at 215, unchanged from Thursday’s numbers after hospitalizations have more than doubled since the start of the new year.

It’s the first time hospitalizations have remained steady since Jan. 12 when 121 people were in hospital with COVID-19.

The 192 COVID inpatient admissions included 88 people who sought treatment for the virus, 89 individuals who went to the hospital for another reason, and 15 people whose reason for going to hospital hasn’t been determined.

There also were 23 people with COVID in intensive care, 15 of whom had COVID-related illnesses, seven who were incidental COVID infections and one who was undetermined.

An additional 1,233 new cases were added to the provincial total Friday, which now sits at 106,328.

A look at the numbers

The 1,233 new cases were reported in the Regina (302), Saskatoon (285), central-east (97), southeast (87), south-central (75), north-central (46), far northwest (44) southwest (45), northeast (37), northwest (36), south-central (35), central-west (20), far northeast (17), and far north-central (nine) zones. The hometowns of 133 cases were pending.

According to the government, 685 of the new cases were fully vaccinated (more than 14 days since their second dose), 274 were fully vaccinated and had gone more than 14 days since receiving their booster dose, 229 were unvaccinated or were fewer than 21 days from their first dose, and 45 had received their first dose or were less than 21 days from their second dose.

The seven-day average of new COVID cases was 1,240, or 103 new cases per 100,000 people.

To date, there have been 106,328 cases reported in Saskatchewan and 93,160 recoveries. The active case count rose to 12,199.

There were 2,123 COVID vaccinations reported, including 810 first and 1,313 second shots. So far in Saskatchewan, more than 1.84 million first and second shots have been administered.