Hospitalizations continue to rise in Saskatchewan as a recent rise in COVID-19 continues.
According to Thursday’s COVID-19 update, there are 98 new cases of COVID-19. The number is lower than in past days, however, the province said weather and logistical challenges resulted in some tests reaching the provincial laboratory after Thursday’s reporting period ended.
Still, test results show 12 new positive cases in North Central. Five of those are in North Central 2, Prince Albert’s subzone.
North Central also has five inpatients and four ICU patients with COVID-19 — some of the 83 COVID patients across Saskatchewan.
There are 62 inpatients and 21 ICU patients with COVID-19 province-wide.
Thursday also marks the release of the weekly monitoring report for COVID-19 cases in school-aged children and youth.
The week of November 9-15 saw 445 positive COVID-19 tests in people aged 19 or younger, and a test positive rate of 7.5 per cent. That’s up from last week’s test positive rate. The test positive rate has been rising week over week for the past few reports.
In North Central 2, there are 19 children and youth with COVID-19. The North Central zone as a whole has 58 cases in children and youth under the age of 19.
Yesterday, 2,004 COVID-19 tests were processed in Saskatchewan.
The province is set to release more modelling data today.
Case spike expected in Saskatoon
Groundbreaking research that has shown to accurately predict COVID-19 case spikes by detecting the amount of the virus that causes the illness in Saskatoon’s wastewater indicates a significant case surge is coming to the city.
The project is being done by University of Saskatchewan researchers working with the city and the Saskatchewan Health Authority.
Infected people shed virus traces through their feces, even before the onset of symptoms. Changes to the amount of virus in wastewater come ahead of changes in case counts at testing centres by about one week.
While the data is based on a population basis and not individual cases, the research team can use the slope of the curve of rising case numbers to extrapolate from wastewater data to predict the impact on the future case count.
The project has predicted that next week, COVID-19 positive cases in Saskatoon could number from 100 to 150 each day.
The most recent reporting period showed 2.5 times more virus in the wastewater over the previous week.
