For the fourth day out of the last five, Saskatchewan is reporting deaths due to COVID-19. Residents from the South Central and South East zones…both in their 80s…were part of Monday’s update from the Ministry of Health, which also reported 325 new cases of the novel coronavirus in the province with the number of hospitalized infections at a record high of 123…up from 115 on Sunday. There are 23 hospitalized patients in an I-C-U…14 of them in Saskatoon. The two deaths mean 47 people have passed because of the virus in Saskatchewan.

Of Monday’s 325 new cases, 125 are from Saskatoon, 62 from Regina, 27 from the North Central zone, 23 from the North West and 22 from the South West zones. There were no new cases reported from the Far North Central zone and two new cases have pending residence information, leaving the remaining 64 new cases spread out amongst seven remaining zones. The seven-day average of new cases in the province is up to 263. The total reported cases of COVID-19 is now at 8,564 with 3,879 cases considered active while 4,638 people have recovered from the novel coronavirus after Monday’s update had 49 individuals recovering.

Of the 8,564 cases in the province:

• 471 cases are travelers;
• 3,616 are community contacts (including mass gatherings);
• 1,825 have no known exposures; and
• 2,652 are under investigation by local public health.

Overall in Saskatchewan to date:

• 256 cases are healthcare workers; however, the source of the infections may not be related to healthcare in all instances.
• 1,774 cases involve people 19 years of age and under, while the remainder are adults.
• 3,050 cases are in the 20-39 age range; 2,291 are in the 40-59 age range; 1,127 are in the 60-79 age range; and 317 are in the 80-plus range. Confirmation of age is pending for five cases.
• 50 per cent of the cases are females and 50 per cent are males.
• 47 deaths related to COVID-19 have been reported to date.

Of 8,564 confirmed cases:

• 2,603 cases are from the Saskatoon area
• 1,742 cases are from the north area (623 north west, 813 north central, 306 north east)
• 1,529 cases are from the Regina area
• 1,122 cases are from the south area (429 south west, 407 south central, 286 south east)
• 913 cases are from the far north area (600 far north west, 80 far north central, 233 far north east)
• 627 cases are from the central area (272 central west, 355 central east)
• 28 cases have pending residence information

To date, 345,487 COVID-19 tests have been processed in Saskatchewan. As of November 28, 2020 when other provincial and national numbers were available, Saskatchewan’s per capita rate was 219,988 people tested per million population. The national rate was 303,613 people tested per million population.

On Sunday, 4,251 COVID-19 tests were processed in Saskatchewan.

Keep your number of contacts low

Based on the confirmed cases at present, public health estimates that there are more than 6,600 reported contacts requiring follow-up in the province right now.

• A “close contact” is anyone that you have spent 15 minutes or more with, within the two metres of physical distancing. You should be able to count your close contacts on one hand.
• At this time, your close contacts should be the members of your immediate household who you dine with, hug, see without requiring a mask.
• Although not close contacts, consider all your weekly contacts whether in the classroom or at your workplace. While you must abide by the public health guidelines in these spaces to reduce the risk of transmission, could you list your contacts for the past 14 days?

Public Health Measures

For more information on the current public health measures or to see the Public Health Order, visit https://www.saskatchewan.ca/covid19.

Additional Resources

Posters outlining public health measures are now available in French, Mandarin, Tagalog and Urdu at https://www.saskatchewan.ca/covid19-posters#utm_campaign=q2_2015&utm_medium=short&utm_source=%2Fcovid19-posters.