In their weekly update, the Saskatchewan Health Authority says the provincial COVID enforcement team issued seven separate fines of $2,800 for failure to mask between December 27th and January 3rd. As well, the weekly update has 84 per cent of residents 12 years and older and 77 per cent of residents five years and older considered to be fully vaccinated.

As of Tuesday, 88 per cent of Saskatchewan residents 12 and older, and 84 per cent five and older have received their first COVID-19 vaccination.   Just under 7.3 per cent of the province’s total cases of COVID-19 were reported in the last week with 6,861, and an overall total to date of 94,080.

Crunching the statistics further, the province says of the 4,621 COVID cases in December, 65 were hospitalized and 31 of those were unvaccinated or partially vaccinated. Two of those who were hospitalized were children under 5. There were seven deaths in December and four of them were unvaccinated. There were no deaths in the group who had their first booster dose and no deaths in December for anyone under 20.

Although the provincial government has announced that those who receive a positive test result from a COVID-19 rapid test are no longer require to have it confirmed with a PCR test, there are certain priority individuals who should still do so. The Saskatchewan Health Authority says PCR testing is available to those who are experiencing moderate symptoms, those who are part of an outbreak situation as ordered by the Medical Health Officer, those who require a transfer or admission to acute and congregate settings and those who require surveillance testing of immunocompromised patients which includes chemotherapy and hemodialysis.