10 new cases of COVID-19, nine more recoveries in Saskatchewan

Two of the cases reported today in the Saskatoon area are associated with the workplace outbreak identified at Brandt Industries. There are 19 cases associated to that cluster. The latest confirmed cases are from completed testing on close contacts of employees and not in the workplace itself.

At a live press conference on Tuesday afternoon Premier Scott Moe attributed outbreaks of COVID-19 in households to gatherings above the recommended limit of 30 people. Moe said as we head back indoors we should take caution on gathering.

“Normally when we do have a problem at one of those gatherings there is some wandering outside of the public health recommendation such as having 40 or 50 people,” he said.

Moe encourages residents to continue to question whether people should be in our contact circle and how many people we allow in our bubbles.

Nine people are in hospital receiving inpatient care with seven in Saskatoon and one in Regina. One person is in intensive care in Saskatoon.

Of the 1,824 cases in Saskatchewan, 271 are travellers, 894 are community contacts, 528 have no known exposures and 131 remain under investigation by public health.

Across the province, 69 are health care workers although not all may have sourced their infections from work.

There are 306 cases involving people aged 19 and under. There are 595 cases in the 20 to 39 age range, 562 in the 40 to 59 age range, 300 in the 60 to 79 age range, and 61 in the 80-plus age range.

Of the total cases, 51 per cent are females and 49 per cent are males.

There have been 24 deaths recorded in the province.

The latest cases of COVID-19 in Saskatchewan as of Sept. 22 (submitted photo/SHA)

In Saskatchewan there are:

439 cases are from the south area (222 south west, 199 south central, 18 south east)
359 cases are from the Saskatoon area
358 cases are from the far north area (349 far north west, 0 far north central, nine far north east)
271 cases are from the north area (131 north west, 73 north central, 67 north east)
235 cases are from the central area (173 central west, 62 central east)
162 cases are from the Regina area

To date, the province has performed 175,405 COVID-19 tests with 1,641 performed yesterday. Testing is available to anyone who requests it regardless of whether they have symptoms.

During a live press conference on Tuesday afternoon Chief Medical Health Officer, Dr. Saqib Shahab said Saskatchewan is still in the first wave of COVID cases.

“At this point I would not qualify this as entering a second wave but we have to watch this closely,” he said.

Shahab said the Saskatchewan Health Authority staff is watching very closely and re-emphasizing simple acts residents need to do to keep cases low. Shahab mentioned as schools open and more people go to work they expect to see a slight increase in cases but they can be managed by keeping contacts low.

The Saskatchewan Health Authority is hiring more staff to accommodate additional testing. SHA labs is hiring 76 positions with 27 hired so far.

Starting this week, the labs will implement pooled testing of asymptomatic swabs, allowing labs to test more specimens with fewer testing materials, increasing test output. If one pooled test produces a positive result, all samples in the batch will be retested individually.

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panews@jpbg.ca

by paNOW Staff

10 new cases of COVID-19, nine more recoveries in Saskatchewan

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