Province says it under-reported COVID hospitalizations
Saskatchewan's government says it under-reported the number of hospitalized COVID-19 patients in daily case reports.
In a press release, the province indicated it had not been counting patients who were in the hospital because of COVID-19 but were no longer considered to be infectious under official guidelines.
For example, as of Dec. 24 the provincial government dashboard reported 125 people with COVID-19 in hospital, 21 in intensive care. But the actual figure is 165 people in hospital, the government says, because there were 40 people who were not included in that count as of Dec. 22, including nine patients in ICU.
This happened when Saskatchewan began implementing new national guidelines that shortened how long people with COVID-19 are considered infectious from 14 days to 10 days, the province said.
“These are not new hospitalizations. These are patients no longer infectious for COVID-19, which had shifted them from active to recovered cases, but still experiencing the complications of COVID-19 illness,” the province reported in a release.
“Validation processes are in place to report a complete census of patients in hospital, including ICU, due to COVID-19. The Ministry of Health is currently reviewing how these cases are reported in other Canadian jurisdictions.”
The government said the Saskatchewan Health Authority is working to incorporate those missing figures into previous reports and will add a notation to the provincial dashboard when this is complete.
The province reported that COVID-19 had claimed four more lives in Saskatchewan as of Christmas Eve, bringing Saskatchewan's death toll to 134.
Two of the deceased were from the Regina area and two were from the north west. Three were in their 80s and one resident from the north west was in their 70s.
The province also reported 154 new cases and 655 recoveries, bringing the number of known active cases to 3,346 as of Dec. 24. The province will post its next update on Dec. 27. It will not post updates on Dec. 26, Dec. 28 or Jan. 1.
The government advised that drive-thru COVID-19 testing sites will have shortened hours for the holiday season. Testing sites in Saskatoon, Regina and Prince Albert will be closed Christmas Day and Jan. 1. Prince Albert's site will also be closed on Boxing Day. Yorkton's site will remain open throughout the holidays. Full hours for each site are available on the Saskatchewan Health Authority's website.
Starting Jan. 2, the SHA will expand drive-thru testing hours in Saskatoon to noon to 7:15 p.m. on weekdays and 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. on weekends. Regina's site will be open from 11:30 a.m. to 7 p.m., seven days a week.
Effective a minute after midnight on Christmas Day, retail stores in Saskatchewan must limit customer volume to 50 per cent of capacity under the newest set of public health orders. Owners and staff are not included in that calculation. Large retail stores — any shop that occupies 20,000 square feet or more — have to cut capacity to an even stricter 25 per cent.
As of Dec. 24, 1,786 health care workers in Regina and Saskatoon had received the first shot of the two-dose COVID-19 vaccine developed by Pfizer/biontech. The first doses of a recently-approved vaccine developed by American company Moderna are expected to arrive in Saskatchewan next week.