Five Regina area residents in their 80s are the latest COVID-19 fatalities in Saskatchewan, upping the provincial death toll to 71. Wednesday’s update from the Ministry of Health also had 302 new cases of COVID-19, plus 253 people having recovered from the virus, leaving the active case count at 4,707. Wednesday’s report notes that the active cases are overrepresented, with an adjustment to come in the next few days once recoveries are more accurately tallied.

Of the 302 new cases, 131 come from Regina, 59 from Saskatoon, 35 from North Central, 26 from the North West zone and two cases require residence information. All 13 Saskatchewan zones had at least one new case Wednesday with the remaining nine zones splitting 49 new cases. The seven-day average for new cases jumped up to 273 from 264 while 144 of the 4,707 active cases are in hospital…27 of those in an I-C-U. In total, Saskatchewan has had 10,899 reported cases of COVID-19 since the pandemic was declared in mid-March.

Of the 10,899 cases in the province:

• 516 cases are travelers;
• 4,599 are community contacts (including mass gatherings);
• 2,479 have no known exposures; and
• 3,305 are under investigation by local public health.

Overall in Saskatchewan to date:

• 359 cases are healthcare workers; however, the source of the infections may not be related to healthcare in all instances.
• 2,296 cases involve people 19 years of age and under, while the remainder are adults.
• 3,816 cases are in the 20-39 age range; 2,867 are in the 40-59 age range; 1,459 are in the 60-79 age range; and 456 are in the 80-plus range. Confirmation of age is pending for five cases.
• 50 per cent of the cases are female and 50 per cent are male.
• 71 deaths related to COVID-19 have been reported to date.

Of 10,899 confirmed cases:

• 3,260 cases are from the Saskatoon area
• 2,254 cases are from the north area (808 north west, 1093 north central, 353 north east)
• 2,177 cases are from the Regina area
• 1,324 cases are from the south area (518 south west, 457 south central, 349 south east)
• 1,138 cases are from the far north area (709 far north west, 85 far north central, 344 far north east)
• 714 cases are from the central area (308 central west, 406 central east)
• 32 cases have pending residence information

To date, 372,405 COVID-19 tests have been processed in Saskatchewan. As of December 7, 2020 when other provincial and national numbers were available, Saskatchewan’s per capita rate was 233,693 people tested per million population. The national rate was 323,173 people tested per million population.

On Tuesday, 2,650 COVID-19 tests were processed in Saskatchewan.