Two new COVID-19 cases, 14 more recoveries in Sask.

There are two new cases of COVID-19 in the province, bringing the total to 300 reported cases.

In a release Monday, the province said 14 more people have recovered, bringing that total to 178 in the province.

The total number of cases includes two presumptive cases reported on April 12, which have now been confirmed. There are no outstanding presumptive cases.

There are eight people in hospital who are all receiving inpatient care. There is no one in intensive care.

Of the 300 cases in Saskatchewan:

• 131 are travel-related
• 120 are contacts or linked to mass gatherings
• 27 have no known exposures
• 22 are under investigation by local public health

Overall in the province:

• 33 cases are health care workers, but the source of the infections may not be related to health care in all instances.
• 147 of the cases are from the Saskatoon area, 65 from the Regina area, 56 from the north, 15 from the south, 10 from the central region and seven from the far north.
• 21 cases involve people 19 years of age and under, while the remainder are adults.
• 129 cases are in the 20-44 age range; 100 are in the 45-64 age range; and 50 are in the 65-plus range.
• 53 per cent of the cases are males, and 47 per cent are females
• Four deaths related to COVID-19 have been reported to date

At this time, 19,804 COVID-19 tests have been performed in the province. Saskatchewan continues to have the second-highest rate of testing per capita among provinces that have reported.

The Premier

With just two new cases reported in the province today, and 17 recoveries, some may be hopeful there is an end in sight, but Premier Scott Moe says nothing will be rushed.

He says there is no specific benchmark as to when they might start opening things up again.

“We are identifying which areas would be the lowest risk for us to move on in the early days,” said Moe at a video conference Monday afternoon.

Moe says his government is working on a plan of how to slowly open the economy and hopes to release it next week.

That doesn’t mean it will start happening right away.

The premier does say, with just two new cases reported Monday, it is a sign that we are flattening the curve, but adds, it is too early to think about changing the current restrictions.

“We would need to see a constant for some period of time. We are starting to see that constant but in saying that, we’re only one outbreak away from interrupting those numbers,” said Moe.

He says any change to restrictions would have to be phased in slowly.