In their daily COVID-19 update release on Tuesday the province warned that with people moving indoors in the fall and winter months, it’s necessary to examine your extended household and potentially reduce your number of regular contacts.
“As the risk of local transmission increases, now is the time to reset your household and reduce the risk to those who matter most to you,” Chief Medical Health Officer Dr. Saqib Shahab said.
“We are all now part of other cohorts: in the workplace, at school, at extracurricular activities. Observing the necessary public health guidance in each of these settings and keeping our close contact list short is a vital step in reducing the risk of COVID-19 transmission.”
In the release, the SHA also stated:
- Your extended household is the people you can hug and touch, or those who can become part of your daily and weekly routines. This be should be 15 people or less. Ideally it is only members of your direct household.
- Assess your extended household. Does it include children in school settings, school staff, essential employees, or vulnerable populations like seniors or those with underlying health conditions? Consider that all of your contacts are now their contacts, too.
- In the event that you are required to provide your activities and contacts as part of a public health contact investigation, can you name all those individuals you have come into close contact with over the last two weeks? If you cannot, adjust your routines and close contacts.
- Stay home from all activities and workplaces even if you are experiencing mild symptoms.
The province also reported another 16 cases of COVID-19 on Tuesday.
There were six cases in the Saskatoon zone, three in the Central East zone, two each in Regina and the South East, one case in the North Central and one case has a pending location.
Of the 1,984 reported COVID-19 cases in Saskatchewan, 139 are considered active.
The recovered number now sits at 1,821 after 20 more recoveries were reported.
The number of deaths from COVID-19 remains at 24.
According to the new and Active Case breakdown the North Central Zone, which includes Prince Albert and area, has four active cases in North Central 2. North Central 1, which includes communities such as Christopher Lake, Candle Lake and Meath Park, has four active cases.
The most active cases are 41 in the Central East, which includes Yorkton.
The second most active cases are in Saskatoon which has 40, Regina is third with 26 active cases.
There is currently one person listed in intensive care in Regina and one person listed in inpatient care in Saskatoon.
The total number of cases is 1,984. Of those 456 cases are from the south area (225 south west, 205 south central and 26 south east), 410 cases are from the Saskatoon area, 360 cases are from the far north area (351 far north west, zero in far north central and nine in far north east), 282 cases are from the north area (132 north west, 81 north central and 69 north east), 281 cases are from the central area (176 central west and 105 central east) and 194 cases are from the Regina area.
There are currently 76 cases that are health care workers; however, the source of the infections is not related to their work environments in all instances.
Of the 1,984 cases in the province: 303 cases are related to travel, 984 are community contacts, which includes mass gatherings, 570 have no known exposures and 127 are under investigation by local public health.
The age breakdown shows 344 cases involve people 19 years of age and under, 656 cases are in the 20-39-age range, 607 are in the 40-59-age range, 312 are in the 60-79-age range and 65 are in the 80-plus-age range.
The gender breakdown shows 51 per cent of the cases being females and 49 per cent being males.
Yesterday, 1,597 COVID-19 tests were performed in Saskatchewan. As of today there have been 203,733 COVID-19 tests have been performed in Saskatchewan.
As of October 4 when other provincial and national numbers were available from the Public Health Agency of Canada, Saskatchewan’s per capita rate was 142,435 people tested per million population. The national rate was 204,720 people tested per million population