Seven deaths, 559 cases added to COVID-19'S toll

Saskatchewan has reported 559 new cases of COVID-19 and seven deaths in its first virus update since Dec. 24.

Four deaths were people in the 80-plus age group (two in the North West zone, one in the South East zone and one in Regina). Two deaths were people in the 70-79 age group ( both in the North West zone) and one death was a person aged 30-39 in the North West zone.

As of Sunday, Saskatchewan has reported 141 total deaths related to COVID-19. Of the new cases reported since Dec. 24, 126 were in Saskatoon and 70 were in Regina. The remaining cases were in the Far North West (25), Far North East (44), North West (41), North

Central (104), North East (22) and Central East (21) zones. There are two new cases in Central West and South West, four in South Central and 11 in the South East zones.

There is pending residence information for 87 new cases. There were also 500 recoveries reported for December 25, 26 and 27.

One of the residents to test positive for COVID-19 lives at the Sherbrooke Community Centre in Saskatoon, according to a release from the care home on Dec. 26. Sherbrooke quickly took isolation measures, said Sherbrooke spokesperson Eric Anderson.

The resident who tested positive lives in a shared house in the facility, which is now isolated from the rest of the building. Each of the nine or 10 residents of that house are isolated in their rooms, and families have been notified about the situation.

While this is the first reported case of COVID-19 at Sherbrooke, the facility has been learning from other long-term care homes that shared their experiences of how to deal with outbreaks.

The province's worst carehome outbreak has been at Extendicare Parkside in Regina, where about 220 staff and residents were infected and at least 20 have died. A factor in the outbreak was that a majority of the rooms are shared between four residents.

The unique layout of Sherbrooke is one factor in preventing the spread to other residents, Anderson said. Another was that care staff work in cohorts to ensure staff are working with the same residents. That was Sherbrooke's staffing practice even before the pandemic.

“We were hoping that this wasn't going to happen, but now that it is, we know what to do, so it is just a matter of doing it,” Anderson said. “And hopefully it can be contained to just the one resident.”

The province's total case count to date is now 14,814, with 3,398 cases considered active. The seven-day average of daily cases now sits at 180 (or 14.9 new cases per 100,000 people).

There are now 182 people in hospital across the province, 26 of them in intensive care.

The Saskatchewan government recently indicated it was under- reporting hospitalizations. The reports did not count people who were in hospital due to COVID-19 but were no longer considered infectious under official national definitions followed by the government. The government is working on a process to ensure these numbers are included in reports.

There will not be an update to daily provincial information today or on Jan. 1, the release said.

From Dec. 25 to 27, 5,079 COVID-19 tests were processed in Saskatchewan.