Hospitalizations are up eleven in Wednesday’s daily COVID-19 update from the Ministry of Health. There are 106 residents in hospital for COVID-19, with 13 receiving care in an ICU. Wednesday’s report included 537 new confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus in Saskatchewan. The number of confirmed Omicron cases has jumped to 242 from 117 in Tuesday’s report. The number of probable cases is at 2,245. Saskatoon accounted for 130 of Wednesday’s new cases while Regina tallied 165 new infections. To date, there have been 87,708 cases of COVID-19 in the province since the pandemic began in March of 2020. No new deaths were reported on Wednesday.

Below are the highlights posted to the Government of Saskatchewan’s website:

• As of January 5th, there are 537 new confirmed cases of COVID-19, bringing the total to 87,708 reported cases.
• The new cases are located in the Far North West (9), Far North East (4), North West (16), North Central (22), North East (11), Saskatoon (130), Central West (14), Central East (39), Regina (165), South West (11), South Central (23) and South East (41) zones and 52 new cases have pending residence information.
• Four (4) SK residents tested positive out-of-province were added to the case counts in the Saskatoon (from January 2 (1)) and Regina (from December 31 (2), January 2 (1)) zones.
• Seven (7) cases were assigned to the Saskatoon (from December 28 (1)), Regina (from January 2 (2)), South Central (from December 28 (2)) and South East (from January 1 (1), January 2 (1)) zones.
• 87,708 cases are confirmed
  • 21,392 cases are from the Saskatoon area
  • 20,469 cases are from the North area (9,051 North West, 8,476 North Central, 2,942 North East)
  • 17,592 cases are from the Regina area
  • 11,165 cases are from the South area (2,315 South West, 3,332 South Central, 5,518 South East)
  • 9,486 cases are from the Far North area (4,457 Far North West, 541 Far North Central, 4,488 Far North East)
  • 6,787 cases are from the Central area (1,588 Central West, 5,199 Central East)
  • 817 cases have pending residence information
• 4,446 cases are considered active and 82,302 cases are considered recovered.
• More than two-fifths (41.9%) of new cases are in the age category of 20 to 39.
• Just over one percent (1.1%) of new cases eligible for vaccination (aged 5 years and older) were fully vaccinated.
• As of January 5th, a total of 106 individuals are hospitalized, including 93 inpatient hospitalizations and 13 ICU hospitalizations. Of the 106 patients, 58 (54.7%) were not fully vaccinated. The province has announced public reporting distinguishing COVID-19 hospitalizations and hospitalizations where COVID-19 diagnosis followed hospitalization. That reporting mechanism is expected to be ready the week of January 3.
• No (0) new deaths reported. 960 Saskatchewan residents with COVID-19 have died, with a case fatality rate of 1.1%.
• 1,341,888 COVID-19 tests have been performed in the province. As of January 3, 2022, when other provincial and national numbers are available from PHAC, Saskatchewan’s per capita rate was 1,132,761 tests performed per million.  The national rate was 1,395,952 tests performed per million.
• The 7-day average of new COVID-19 case numbers was 549 (45.6 new cases per 100,000).