Four new cases of COVID-19 are being reported in Saskatchewan on Tuesday. The province has 320 total cases with 64 considered active.
14 more residents have recovered from the virus, bringing the provincial total to 252.
In Saskatchewan, there are five in hospitals with four people receiving inpatient care and one person in intensive care.
Despite low COVID-19 numbers in the province over the last several days, the Saskatchewan Health Authority said they are still planning for the worst.
CEO Scott Livingstone explained that they are continuing to strengthen their plan to deal with the pandemic by enhancing protections for long-term care residents and staff across the province.
“Next week we will share with you more of what we are learning and what we may be adjusting in our response plan both with offence and defence as a result of those new numbers,” stated Livingstone.
“We’re still planning for extraordinary demand on our critical care units, health care teams and working hard to ensure we have the necessary acute care capacity to deal with COVID-19’s surge.”
The province’s public health order, which was updated on Friday and will take effect this on April 28, states new requirements such as long-term care and personal care homes ensuring each staff member works in only one facility.
A new temporary agreement was signed to support the creation of a temporary labour pool and the cohorting of staff during the pandemic.
The letter was signed by the SHA, along with the Saskatchewan Association of Health Organizations and all 5 health care unions – SUN, HSAS, CUPE, SEIU-West and SGEU.
Of the 320 cases in the province:
• 135 cases are travellers;
• 134 are community contacts (mass gatherings included);
• 31 have no known exposures; and
• 20 are under investigation by local public health.
Overall in Saskatchewan:
• 35 of the cases are health care workers; however, the source of the infections may not be related to health care in all instances.
• 150 of the cases are from the Saskatoon area, 71 from the Regina area, 60 from the north, 15 from the south, 11 from the central region and 13 from the far north.
• 25 cases involve people 19 years of age and under, while the remainder are adults.
• 116 cases are in the 20-39 age range; 107 are in the 40-59 age range; 63 are in the 60-79 age range; and nine are in the 80-plus range.
• 52 per cent of the cases are males and 48 per cent are females.
• Four deaths related to COVID-19 have been reported to date.
24,811 COVID-19 tests have been performed in the province.
Case surveillance and testing information, including regional locations of confirmed cases, are available at www.saskatchewan.ca/COVID19.
