Latest COVID update Jan. 30: Hospitalizations climb to 349

Saskatchewan reported Sunday its second-highest total of COVID-19 hospitalizations since the pandemic started.

The Ministry of Health’s daily update said there were 349 people with COVID in the province’s health-care facilities. The record of 356 was set Oct. 6.

The province also reported 1,331 new cases and 1,179 recoveries on Sunday. There also was one death announced; an individual in the 80-and-over age group from the southwest zone became the 990th Saskatchewan resident to die due to COVID.

There were 310 inpatient admissions in the province’s hospitals, up six from Saturday’s report. Three more people were in intensive care than were Saturday, increasing that total to 39, with one of those in a pediatric or neonatal ICU.

The inpatient total included 159 people who were in hospital with incidental COVID infections, 116 individuals who went to hospital for a COVID-related illness, and 35 cases that had yet to be determined.

The ICU admissions comprised 33 people with COVID illnesses (including the PICU/NICU case) and six who were incidental infections.

The Saskatoon region once again set a record for hospitalizations with 172, with 17 of those in ICU.

A look at the numbers

The new cases were reported in the Saskatoon (396), Regina (319), southeast (102), south-central (84), central-east (77), north-central (61), northwest (54), central-west (41), southwest (38), northeast (21), far northwest (11), far northeast (four) and far north-central (one) zones.

The hometowns of 122 new cases were pending.

The cases in the Saskatoon district were detected in 891 tests reported to public health, meaning 44.4 per cent of the tests returned a positive result. The rate in the Regina region was 42.6 per cent.

Of the new cases, 597 were fully vaccinated (more than two weeks since their second dose), 423 were fully vaccinated and more than two weeks had passed since they received their booster shot, 267 were unvaccinated or were less than 21 days after their first dose, and 44 had received their first dose or were less than 21 days from their second dose.

There were 16 out-of-province test results added to the province’s total, which stood at 117,858.

Saskatchewan considers 104,148 cases recovered. The active case count rose by 167 from Saturday’s update to 12,720.

The seven-day average of new cases was 1,188, or 98.6 new cases per 100,000 people. It’s the first time in a week that latter figure has been below 100.

There were 1,644 first and second doses of COVID vaccine administered, increasing the provincial total to date to 1,857,993.