Canada’s Health Minister is urging everyone to stay up-to-date on their COVID-19 vaccines as a new Omicron sub-variant has been identified by the World Health organization as a variant of interest. Mark Holland says EG.5 started showing up in Canada around May, but it is now on the rise as it has been in other countries.

The Public Health Agency of Canada is evaluating case counts and the trajectory daily, but Holland adds that going into the fall, a rise in cases is not a surprise. He says, “This is fully expected. We knew that as we lead into fall we’ll see an increase in the case count. The critical thing right now is for everybody to keep their vaccinations up-to-date and for people to take appropriate health precautions.” Holland points to a recent report about Canada’s hybrid immunity with vaccines which states that the practices and approaches taken in Canada are incredibly effective and getting COVID shots saved about 800,000 lives.

The latest numbers from the Public Health Agency for the week leading up to Tuesday, are that across Canada, the number of COVID-19 patients in hospital increased by 11 per cent to 1,723. The WHO says the new variant may be more infectious but there is no indication that it causes a more severe illness.

In Saskatchewan: The provincial government’s monthly respiratory illness surveillance report states that COVID-19 activity has decreased over the past month while RSV has had no cases reported and the flu remains stable, dipping below the two per cent test positivity threshold. Two people with COVID died in the past four weeks.

The province has had its first detections of EG.5, the latest Omicron sub-variant. The surveillance report says Saskatchewan will have new COVID-19 vaccines which provide protection against the more recent sub-lineages of Omicron this fall, pending Health Canada authorization.