Everything went up, as far as COVID-19 numbers are concerned, in Friday’s update from the Ministry of Health. The report includes four deaths, 329 new cases, 208 people recovering from the novel coronavirus and 111 infections being treated in Saskatchewan hospitals with 16 in I-C-U. Three of the four deaths are people in their 80s from each of the North Central, Regina and South East zones plus a person in their 70s from the South Central zone. Only the Far North Central zone didn’t have a new case of COVID-19 in Friday’s update with 158 of the 329 new cases from Saskatoon, 61 from Regina, 23 from the North West, 21 from the North Central, 16 from the South West and 14 from the South East zones with five new cases pending residence information. The seven-day average of new cases of the virus jumped up to 268 and there are 3,263 active cases of COVID-19 in Saskatchewan.

Eleven of the 16 I-C-U cases in the province are in Saskatoon. The total reported cases of the novel coronavirus is up to 7,691 since the pandemic was declared in mid-March in Saskatchewan with 4,384 of those people having recovered.

Of the 7,691 cases in the province:

• 466 cases are travelers;
• 3,419 are community contacts (including mass gatherings);
• 1,569 have no known exposures; and
• 2,237 are under investigation by local public health.

Overall in Saskatchewan to date:

• 241 cases are healthcare workers; however, the source of the infections may not be related to healthcare in all instances.
• 1,611 cases involve people 19 years of age and under, while the remainder are adults.
• 2,740 cases are in the 20-39 age range; 2,045 are in the 40-59 age range; 1,020 are in the 60-79 age range; and 270 are in the 80-plus range. Confirmation of age is pending for five cases.
• 51 per cent of the cases are females and 49 per cent are males.
• 44 deaths related to COVID-19 have been reported to date.

Of 7,691 confirmed cases:

• 2,328 cases are from the Saskatoon area
• 1,599 cases are from the north area (565 north west, 754 north central, 280 north east)
• 1,273 cases are from the Regina area
• 1,009 cases are from the south area (372 south west, 384 south central, 253 south east)
• 860 cases are from the far north area (575 far north west, 79 far north central, 206 far north east)
• 593 cases are from the central area (268 central west, 325 central east)
• 29 cases have pending residence information

To date, 334,051 COVID-19 tests have been processed in Saskatchewan. As of November 25, 2020 when other provincial and national numbers were available, Saskatchewan’s per capita rate was 214,607 people tested per million population. The national rate was 297,154 people tested per million population.

On Thursday, 3,687 COVID-19 tests were processed in Saskatchewan.

New Pilot Projects on Rapid Point of Care Testing Added

New rapid point of care testing units (Abbott ID Now) with results in 15 minutes are being rolled out in a pilot program for hospitals in Regina, Saskatoon, Prince Albert and Moose Jaw, and mobile testing locations to quickly determine status of an asymptomatic individual. This testing option will assist with hospital admissions, and discharges to a long-term-care facility.

A rapid antigen test (Abbot Panbio) pilot project is also being rolled out to participating long-term care (LTC), personal care homes (PCH) and congregate living settings. Results are available in 15 minutes and used for rapid recurrent asymptomatic screening of staff and residents.

All rapid positive tests will be presumed positive and will need to be confirmed by a laboratory test for now.