The provincial number of confirmed cases in Saskatchewan now stands at 134.

Of the 30 new cases announced during a Saturday afternoon media briefing, 16 are linked to a snowmobile rally dinner in Christopher Lake on Saturday, March 14th.

“If you attended the rally and have not yet been contacted and are experiencing symptoms—please, please call Health Line at 811 to be assessed,” said Dr. Khami Chokami, medical health officer with the Saskatchewan Health Authority in Prince Albert.

Dr. Chokami says health officials have been in contact with 76 of the 110 people who attended the Christopher Lake snowmobile rally dinner.

“This really demonstrates why we have been reducing the size of gatherings in Saskatchewan,” said Dr. Saqib Shahab, Saskatchewan’s chief medical health officer. “While we love celebrating and getting together in Saskatchewan, this is not the time. This is the time for social distancing.”

Dr. Shahab cautions against pointing fingers at those involved with the Christopher Lake event.

“We have to be in this together and I think we need to be very careful not to assign blame to any event. No one wants people to come to an event and get sick. I think we need to be supportive of people who were at an event and are sick. We need to be supportive of people who were there and are waiting out the two week period,” Dr. Shahab said.

He warns COVID-19 moves quickly and we cannot be complacent about following measures such as social distancing, proper hand washing and reporting illness.

On the positive side, so far only six people are in hospital. Three are in acute care and three in intensive care.

The vast majority of cases are either travel-related or cluster-related (specific events), but at least seven cases are the result of local transmission.

A total of 8,248 COVID-19 tests have been conducted in Saskatchewan.

You can check out the entire new release here. A portion of Saturday’s media brief can be heard here.