Saskatchewan recorded its highest one-day number of new, confirmed COVID-19 infections Thursday as 42 cases were reported.

Thirty-one are from the South region, six from the Central region, four in Saskatoon and one case in the North region. The Ministry of Health pointed out in the update that, while some cases have links to communal settings, there are several other, unrelated increases in cases in southwest and west central areas of the province…meaning the overall increased level of novel coronavirus activity means there is an increased risk of transmission to the public. Because of the increased risk in the southwest and west central areas, visitation to the Cypress Regional Hospital as well as long-term care homes and personal care homes in the area are being temporarily restricted. Family members or support people will only be permitted at Cypress Regional Hospital for compassionate reasons while visitations to long-term care home and personal care homes will be restricted to outdoor visits and end-of-life care.

The 42 new cases brings the total number of COVID-19 infections in Saskatchewan to 923 since the pandemic took hold in mid-March. There were three recoveries for a provincial total of 794, leaving 114 active cases. Of those, 11 Saskatchewan people are hospitalized…eight of them in Saskatoon with one in Intensive Care. One other patient is in the I-C-U in the South region while there is an infection being treated on an inpatient basis in each of the South and North regions.

Of the 923 cases in the province:

• 180 cases are travellers;
• 504 are community contacts (including mass gatherings);
• 134 have no known exposures; and
• 105 are under investigation by local public health.

Overall in Saskatchewan:

• 58 cases are health care workers; however, the source of the infections may not be related to health care in all instances.
• 339 of the cases are from the Far North, 204 are from the Saskatoon area, 121 from the North, 115 from the South, 85 from the Regina area and 59 from the Central region.
• 130 cases involve people 19 years of age and under, while the remainder are adults.
• 321 cases are in the 20-39 age range; 285 are in the 40-59 age range; 161 are in the 60-79 age range; and 26 are in the 80-plus range.
• 51 per cent of the cases are females and 49 per cent are males.
• 15 deaths related to COVID-19 have been reported to date.

To date, 78,851 COVID19 tests have been performed in Saskatchewan. As of July 14, 2020, when other provincial and national numbers were available from the Public Health Agency of Canada, Saskatchewan’s per capita rate was 56,964 people tested per million population. The national rate was 88,906 people tested per million population.