The Saskatchewan government says a fifth person has died from complications related to COVID-19 bringing the number of deaths in the province to five in total. NDP Leader Ryan Meili says it is an elder in La Loche, 83 year old Joseph Pierre Sylvestre who had been living in a long term care facility in the community. The province says it has been questioned about the timing of reporting COVID-19 deaths and points out that the fatalities must be confirmed by the medical health officer before being reported publicly by the ministry.

Saskatchewan’s far north is bearing the brunt of the transmission of COVID-19 right now with over half of the province’s active cases in that region, and most are in La Loche and surrounding area.
The Medical Health Officer for the Northern Health Unit, Dr. Rim Zayad, says there are 72 active cases in the province and 42 are in the far north, with 29 confirmed cases in La Loche and 9 more in nearby communities.

The initial contact was from northern Alberta. 29 of the cases in the north are travel-related. 26 are connected to norther Alberta to work camps and there are 2 cases in long term care. The contact tracing investigations continue and more testing will ramp up with a new mobile testing machine to be ready by May 1st. In the meantime, there are also mobile testing sites, home testing for those with mobility challenges and drive-through testing at the La Loche Centre.

There is also a much smaller cluster in Saskatoon that was found at the Confederation Inn, which immediately closed for sanitization. Saskatchewan Health Authority Medical Health Officer, Dr. Johnmark Opondo says 4 people have a home address linked to La Loche, but not all of them have traveled recently. The patients are stable and isolated.

The province’s Chief Medical Health Officer also wanted to provide some clarity about gradually re-opening the province and last week’s announcement that households could expand to include other households in a virtual household. Dr. Saqib Shahab says that means have 1 or 2 trusted households of family or friends that you can convene with, but while also practicing physical distancing, and these households must be constant rather than having a variety of households in separate visits. Dr. Shahab emphasizes to stick to 1 or 2, and keep physical distancing in the mix, otherwise there will be more cases of COVID-19 and all the work to date will have been for naught.

As of today, Saskatchewan has 12 new cases of COVID-19 bringing the provincial total to 365. Eleven of the 12 cases are in the Far North and one is in the north region. As Monday, 29 of the province’s Far North cases are in La Loche. The cases in the La Loche area are connected to the outbreak at the oilsands camp in northern Alberta. We now have 72 active cases with seven people in hospital and two of those people in intensive care.

Of the 365 cases in the province:
139 cases are travellers;
149 are contacts or linked to mass gatherings;
35 have no known exposures; and
42 are under investigation by local public health.

Overall in Saskatchewan:
38 of the cases are health care workers; however, the source of the infections may not be related to health care in all instances.
150 of the cases are from the Saskatoon area, 74 from the Regina area, 69 from the north, 15 from the south, 11 from the central region and 46 from the far north.
30 cases involve people 19 years of age and under, while the remainder are adults.
132 cases are in the 20-39 age range; 124 are in the 40-59 age range; 68 are in the 60-79 age range; and 11 are in the 80-plus range.
51 per cent of the cases are males and 49 per cent are females.

To date, 28,296 COVID-19 tests have been performed in the province. As of April 24, 2020, when other provincial and national numbers are available from the Public Health Agency of Canada, Saskatchewan’s per capita rate was 21,880 people tested per million population and exceeds the national rate of 17,812 people tested per million population.

Saskatchewan residents are reminded that there is a Public Health Order restricting all non-essential travel into and out of northern Saskatchewan, specifically the Northern Saskatchewan Administration District.

Chief Medical Health Officer Dr. Shahab has also strongly recommended against non-essential travel between communities within northern Saskatchewan.