REGINA — The provincial health authority has released a new weekly COVID-19 epidemiological report, sharing data to continue informing residents of the virus's status in Saskatchewan.
The report includes data on case numbers, deaths and testing statistics collected from Feb. 27 to March 5, as well as data on hospitalizations from March 2-9.
Health officials continue to remind residents that case positivity numbers only reflect laboratory testing, and do not include any results from positive at-home rapid antigen tests.
Here are five things you should know from this week’s report:
Cases continue on same track
A total of 1,013 laboratory-confirmed cases of COVID-19 were reported between Feb. 27 and March 5, slightly less than the week previous. Of those, 637 variants were identified, all of which were the Omicron strain.
The South Central zone had the highest proportion of new cases for the week, while the North East zone had the lowest.
Number of deaths are down
Thirteen new deaths caused by COVID-19 were recorded, a sharp decrease from the 44 deaths during Feb. 20-26 and 40 deaths from Feb. 13-19.
Data was not broken down into daily numbers, making it unclear how many deaths occurred in the last two days of February to complete the monthly data set.
Testing continues
Saskatchewan labs performed 7,518 tests during this report period, similar to the 7,833 tests the week prior, with a test positivity of one in eight or 12.7 per cent.
ERs continue to see COVID-like symptoms
Emergency departments are continuing to see the same rate of patients attending their services with COVID-like symptoms. This reporting period, an average of 38.1 patients per 1,000 were recorded.
Hospitalizations have also decreased over last week, with 339 individuals currently in care — 24 patients are in ICU care.
Vaccination stagnating
As of March 5, 80.4 per cent of eligible residents over the age of five have received a full series of the COVID-19 vaccine, an incremental increase over last week. Among those 18 and older, 50.9 per cent have received a booster shot.
