Latest COVID May 16: Daily vaccine record broken for second straight day

Saskatchewan’s vaccine rollout is roaring away at full speed.

For the second straight day, the Ministry of Health reported a new record of doses administered Sunday.

There were 18,995 doses given in the latest reporting period – just over 300 more than Saturday’s record.

Now, the total number of doses given stands at 590,952. Seventy-four per cent of people aged 40 or older have received their first shot, while 66 per cent of people over 30 and 57 per cent of people over 18 have theirs.

The province credits the record-breaking days “largely to the expanded capacity resulting from increased involvement of pharmacies in the COVID vaccination program,” it said in its daily news release.

The age of eligibility to get a shot dropped to 20 or older Sunday.

A look at the numbers

Active cases rose slightly in Saskatchewan Sunday.

There were 167 new infections, along with 156 recoveries and one new death, a person in the 80+ age group in the Saskatoon area. The active caseload now sits at 2,082.

Since the pandemic began, there have been 516 total deaths, 44,531 cases and 41,932 recoveries.

Saskatoon continues to lead the province in new cases, reporting 54 new infections.

The other cases are located in the Regina (29), northwest (20), north-central (16), southeast (14), south-central (11), far northwest (six), southwest (three) and far northeast (one) areas. They’re still looking into the hometowns of six new cases, while one previously reported case was assigned to Saskatoon.

Investigations discovered 130 new variant cases in Saskatchewan. So far, 9,215 cases in the province have been variants.

The seven-day average of daily new cases now sits at 191, or 15.6 cases per 100,000 people.

Hospitalizations have dropped, with 137 in hospital across Saskatchewan.

Of those, there are 24 in the ICU in the Regina (11) and Saskatoon (10) zones, with one each in the central-east, north-west and north-central areas.