COVID-19 in Sask.: 114 people in hospital, test positivity still above 25%
CBC
More than one in four people receiving a PCR test are testing positive for the COVID-19 virus, the province reported on Saturday. It's the third day in a row with a test positivity rate above 25 per cent.
There were 3,510 tests and 937 new cases reported on Saturday for a test positivity rate of 26.7 per cent.
The province has said they will be watching hospitalizations as an indicator of COVID-19 in Saskatchewan. On Saturday, the number of people in hospital rose by nine to 114.
Of them, there were 101 people counted for inpatient care and another 13 in intensive care. In the provincial update, there were 58 hospitalizations from a COVID-19 related illness, 36 incidental, asymptomatic infections and seven haven't yet been determined.
It's the third day in a row that the province has posted more than 900 daily new cases. Prior to 2022, the highest number of daily new cases was 602, according to the province's COVID-19 dashboard. It's caused the province to clear 90,000 total cases since the pandemic began.
While Chief Medical Officer Dr. Saqib Shahab had said COVID-19 data has always missed a portion of the case count, case counts have been more recently skewed by province's recent guidance.
Last week, the Saskatchewan government advised residents not to seek PCR testing if they tested positive on a rapid antigen test but were asymptomatic, leading to reduced case numbers.
Despite that, active cases have continued to shatter records, including an active case count which has climbed by more than 6,000 cases in a little more than two weeks.
There were less than 800 active cases on Dec. 23, which rose to 6,897 active cases on Jan. 8, according to the provincial COVID-19 dashboard.
The new cases were reported in the following health regions:
Another 118 new cases are pending residence information.
Saskatchewan reported no new deaths on Saturday.
During a press conference on Thursday, Public Safety Agency president Marlo Pritchard said some elements of the COVID-19 dashboard would not be updated, including the variants of concern and death tables.
The province reported 3,034 new doses of vaccine on Saturday, bringing the total to 1,813,493.
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