More than 13K COVID cases in Sask. have been kids under 11

More than one-sixth of Saskatchewan’s COVID-19 cases to date have been children under the age of 11.

On Thursday, the provincial government’s COVID dashboard changed the age groups of cases, separating the 0-to-11 and 12-to-19 groups.

The new chart showed 13,424 children under 11 had contracted the virus to date — or 16.8 per cent of the province’s 79,937 total cases so far.

There were 9,590 cases among those between the ages of 12 and 19, 27,736 cases in the 20-to-39 age group, 18,291 infections in the 40-to-59 age range, 8,426 cases among people aged 60 to 79, and 2,470 infections in those 80 and over.

Kids under the age of 11 aren’t eligible to be vaccinated against the virus in Saskatchewan, but that’s expected to change very soon. During a media conference Friday, Health Canada is expected to approve Pfizer’s COVID vaccine for kids aged five to 11.

980 CJME will carry that event live at 9 a.m.

Saskatchewan Health Minister Paul Merriman said Thursday the province wants to see vaccines go into kids’ arms as soon as possible.

“We’ll be ready as soon as those vaccines hit the ground, as soon as they’re distributed out from the federal government,” Merriman said.

“We’re ready to go with some of the schools as our partners, but we’re trying to limit it to outside school hours so we make sure that the parents are there when any of these young ones are getting vaccinated.”

The provincial government continues to urge people to get vaccinated. As of Thursday, more than 1.7 million doses of COVID vaccines have been administered in Saskatchewan, and more than 820,000 people have got two shots.

That latter number represents 81 per cent of the eligible population.

Merriman said the more people who get vaccinated in the province, the better off Saskatchewan is going to be.

The health minister said he’s eager to find out when the kids’ doses will arrive in the province.

“(Canadian Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos) has indicated that as soon as (the vaccines) are approved, they will be moving across the country right away …,” Merriman said.

“I would hope it’s as soon as possible because people are busy (with) extracurriculars, sports are going on (and) people are getting ready for Christmas. But we also want to make sure that they also make time to go get vaccinated when eligible.”

— With files from 980 CJME’s Lisa Schick