COVID-19 in Sask.: 2 more deaths, hospital numbers continue to climb

Two more people with COVID-19 have died in Saskatchewan, and hospital numbers continue to rise as the Omicron variant spreads across the province, the province's dashboard advised on Friday.

One person with the disease who died was in the 60 to 79 age range while the other one was 80 years of age or older, according to the province.

Since the start of the pandemic, 987 people with COVID-19 have died in Saskatchewan.

Hospital numbers have jumped by 14 since yesterday's update, bringing the total to 342. More than a third of the COVID-19 patients were not fully vaccinated.

Of the 308 inpatient hospitalizations, excluding people in ICU, 129 patients are receiving health care due to a COVID-19-related illness, 163 are incidental cases — meaning they were admitted for another condition, then diagnosed with COVID-19 — and 16 have not yet been determined, the dashboard says.

Of the 34 ICU patients, 26  are being treated for COVID-19-related illnesses while six are considered incidental COVID-19 infections. Two patients were in the pediatric intensive care unit/neonatal intensive care unit, one for COVID-19-related illness and the other for an incidental COVID-19 infection.

As of Friday, there were 12,685 known active cases in Saskatchewan, with 1,392 of them new confirmed cases, according to the dashboard.

However, the case numbers are considered an undercount because they include only the results from polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests and not the results from self-rapid tests that many people take at home.

The seven-day daily average of new cases was 1,287 on Friday, or 106.9 per 100,000 people.

Health-care workers have administered 3,910 additional PCR tests as of Friday's update, with the provincial test positivity rate rising to 36 per cent today.

Another 2,076 doses of vaccine were administered in the province: 693 people received their first dose and 1,383 got their second shot.

Overall, 961,856 residents of Saskatchewan, or 85 per cent of eligible population, have now received one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, while 892,361 people in the province are considered fully vaccinated.