Saskatchewan’s 54th death due to COVID-19 is a person in their 80s from the South region. Otherwise, Thursday’s update from the Ministry of Health had 259 new cases of the novel coronavirus in the province with 214 recoveries to bring the active case number to 4,017…128 of which are in hospital, 24 in an I-C-U. The seven-day average for new cases of COVID-19 in Saskatchewan went down marginally Thursday, from 274 Wednesday to 269.

Three of the daily virus numbers passed milestones Thursday…total reported cases jumped above 9,000 to 9,244; active cases crept past 4,000 and 4,017; total individuals recovered leapt past 5,000 to 5,173.

Of the 259 new cases, 112 are from Regina, 50 from Saskatoon, 21 from each of the North West and South West zones, 20 from the North Central zone with one new case requiring residence information. That leaves 34 new cases spread amongst seven other zones with no new cases reported from the Far North Central zone. Three Saskatchewan residents tested out of province were added to the North West zone while four pending residence cases were split evenly between the North West and North Central zones. The 259 new cases came from 3,247 processed tests, meaning a positivity rate of eight per cent.

Of the 9,244 cases in the province:

• 486 cases are travelers;
• 3,929 are community contacts (including mass gatherings);
• 2,221 have no known exposures; and
• 2,608 are under investigation by local public health.

Overall in Saskatchewan to date:

• 285 cases are healthcare workers; however, the source of the infections may not be related to healthcare in all instances.
• 1,909 cases involve people 19 years of age and under, while the remainder are adults.
• 3,276 cases are in the 20-39 age range; 2,473 are in the 40-59 age range; 1,226 are in the 60-79 age range; and 355 are in the 80-plus range. Confirmation of age is pending for five cases.
• 50 per cent of the cases are female and 50 per cent are male.
• 54 deaths related to COVID-19 have been reported to date.

Of 9,244 confirmed cases:

• 2,802 cases are from the Saskatoon area
• 1,859 cases are from the north area (678 north west, 869 north central, 312 north east)
• 1,746 cases are from the Regina area
• 1,188 cases are from the south area (463 south west, 422 south central, 303 south east)
• 976 cases are from the far north area (627 far north west, 83 far north central, 266 far north east)
• 643 cases are from the central area (278 central west, 365 central east)
• 30 cases have pending residence information

To date, 353,638 COVID-19 tests have been processed in Saskatchewan. As of December 1, 2020 when other provincial and national numbers were available, Saskatchewan’s per capita rate was 224,447 people tested per million population. The national rate was 310,004 people tested per million population.

On Wednesday, 3,247 COVID-19 tests were processed in Saskatchewan.

Weekly Reporting of Testing Numbers and Cases for Youth

Monitoring the trends of COVID-19 cases in school-aged children, the weekly report of cases and testing numbers for children aged 0-19 with data by age categories and testing positivity rates has been posted for the two-week period November 10-24, 2020 at www.saskatchewan.ca/COVID19-Safe-Schools-Plan.