The Saskatchewan Health Authority says it continues to redeploy staff to critical care areas as the province reaches new highs in intensive care and non-ICU hospital admissions this week.

The SHA says overall hospitalizations and admissions to ICU due to COVID have nearly tripled over the last month.

Health officials also say that a review of Saskatchewan’s COVID-19 data continues to show that unvaccinated people are six times more likely to test positive for COVID-19 than a fully vaccinated person and five times more likely to be hospitalized from the virus.

Derek Miller with the SHA says they are expecting a surge in the coming days and weeks which will mean some communities are going to see disruptions to their hospital services which could include temporary emergency department closures.