A person under the age of 19 was among 22 COVID-19-related deaths included in the Ministry of Health’s weekly novel coronavirus report, as of May 14.

That’s three more than the week previous report as of May 7. Three other key statistics from the latest update are down from the previous release. There were 465 new lab-confirmed positive cases of COVID-19, compared to 710 in the province. In addition, there were 270 Saskatchewan residents in hospital with the virus this week, compared to 321 the previous week with 14 infections in an I-C-U, compared to 16 last week.

Weekly COVID-19 Epi Report  

Issued Thursdays, the Ministry of Health’s COVID-19 integrated epidemiology (epi) report utilizes multiple data sources and includes laboratory-confirmed cases, deaths, tests, vaccination information
provincially and by zones, as well as hospital and ICU census trends and distribution of rapid antigen tests. The epi report this week looks at data from Sunday, May 8 to Saturday, May 14, 2022. The hospitalization data is a comparison from May 12 to May 18,
2022.

The integrated epi report can be found online at saskatchewan.ca/COVID19-cases.

Summary for the week of May 18-14, 2022

• 6,908 laboratory tests were performed in Saskatchewan reflecting 5.7 tests performed per 1,000 population. The number of tests was lower than the number of tests in the previous week (7,099).
• Less than one in fifteen laboratory tests were positive (weekly test positivity of 6.5 per cent), which is a decrease from the previous week (7.6 per cent).
• 465 new cases were confirmed reflecting about 0.4 laboratory-confirmed cases per 1,000 population, lower than the number of new cases in the previous week (710).
• The majority of laboratory-confirmed cases this week were 50 years and older (54.8 per cent).
• There were 265 new lineage results reported this week. Of the 265 variants of concern identified by whole genome sequencing, 100 per cent were Omicron. BA.2 sublineage is more transmissible
  compared to pre-variant 2020 COVID-19 and BA.1 sub-lineages but there is no current evidence of increased severity.
• The Omicron BA.2 sublineage accounted for 70.9 per cent of the variants of concern reported this week, which was lower compared to the previous week.  A batch of test results dated back to  January
  2022 were reported this week – artificially increasing the BA.1 and decreasing the percent of BA.2 in the current week.
• There were 22 newly-reported COVID-19 deaths (19 in the previous week).
• There were 27.0 COVID-like illness patients per 1,000 emergency department visits which was lower than the average weekly rate in the previous six weeks (39.1 per week/1,000 visits).
• 11 confirmed COVID-19 outbreaks in long-term care and care home settings were reported this week.
• As of May 14, 2022, of the population five years and older, 81 per cent have completed a series.
• Among the population 18 years and older, 52.3 per cent had received at least one booster vaccination.
• As of the week of May 9, there have been 434 Paxlovid prescriptions and two Remdesivir treatments provided.
• More than 20.6 million rapid antigen test kits have been distributed in the province. They are easily accessible at more than 600
  locations.