Active cases in Saskatchewan continued to rise in Sunday’s COVID-19 update from the Ministry of Health, but hospitalized patients due to the novel coronavirus are down again.

For the third straight day, the number of hospitalized COVID-19 patients in the province went down by one person. Sunday’s report has one person in Intensive Care in Saskatoon. However, eight new cases of the virus were in the update…three in Saskatoon area, two in the Central East region and one each in the Regina area, Northwest region and South East zone. That ups the overall total of COVID-19 cases in Saskatchewan to 1,651 with 48 active cases. There were no recoveries in Sunday’s report, leaving the provincial total at 1,579.

Of the 1,651 cases in the province:

• 251 cases are travellers;
• 834 are community contacts (including mass gatherings);
• 488 have no known exposures; and
• 78 are under investigation by local public health

Overall in Saskatchewan:

• 66 cases are healthcare workers; however, the source of the infections may not be related to healthcare in all instances.
• 276 cases involve people 19 years of age and under, while the remainder are adults. 535 cases are in the 20-39 age range; 502 are in the 40-59 age range; 280 are in the 60-79 age range; and 58 are in the 80-plus range.
• 51 per cent of the cases are females and 49 per cent are males.
• 24 deaths related to COVID-19 have been reported to date.
• There are:
  • 424 cases from the south area (217 south west, 195 south central, 12 south east)
  • 353 cases from the far north area (347 far north west, 6 far north east)
  • 273 cases from the Saskatoon area
  • 268 cases from the north area (131 north west, 71 north central, 66 north east)
  • 200 cases from the central area (164 central west, 36 central east)
  • 133 cases from the Regina area

To date, 148,876 COVID19 tests have been performed in Saskatchewan. As of September 4, 2020, when other provincial and national numbers were available from the Public Health Agency of Canada, Saskatchewan’s per capita rate was 105,789 people tested per million population. The national rate was 152,592 people tested per million population.

On Saturday, 2,081 COVID-19 tests were performed in Saskatchewan.