Saskatchewan is reporting 20 new COVID-19 related deaths for the week of March 20th to the 26th. That brings the total to 1,233 fatalities due to the novel coronavirus in Saskatchewan since the beginning of the pandemic.

On the hospitalizations front, there are 19 more Saskatchewan residents in hospital receiving care for the virus with 324. There are two more in intensive care as of March 30th with 21 in an ICU.

There were 1,196 new laboratory confirmed cases of COVID for the week ending March 26th.

The province says almost one in eight laboratory tests came back positive.

Below are the highlights from the latest COVID-19 report:

 7,449 laboratory tests were performed in Saskatchewan
reflecting 6.2 tests performed per 1,000 population.

 The number of tests was similar to the number of tests
in the previous week (7,488).

 Almost one in eight laboratory tests were positive
(weekly test positivity of 12.3%), slightly higher than the
previous week.

 1,196 new cases were confirmed reflecting about 1.0
laboratory-confirmed cases per 1,000 population.

 The number of new laboratory-confirmed cases was
about 34% higher than the number of new cases in the
previous week (894).

 There were 400 new lineage results reported this week.
Of the 400 variants of concern identified by whole
genome sequencing, all were Omicron.
 The Omicron BA.2 sublineage accounted for 15.5% of
the VOCs reported this week, a decrease from 25.9%
the previous week.
 There were 20 newly-reported COVID-19 deaths, about
39% lower than in the previous week (33).

 There were 25.7 COVID-like illness patients per 1,000
emergency department visits which is lower than the
average weekly rate in the previous six weeks (35.2 per
week/1,000 visits).

 Ten (10) confirmed COVID-19 outbreaks in long-term
care and care home settings were reported this week.

 As of March 26, of the population five years and older,
85.7% received at least one dose of a two-dose COVID19 vaccine and 80.6% completed a series.

 Among the population 18 years and older, 51.3% had
received at least one booster vaccination.