Saskatchewan health officials reported 76 new cases of COVID-19 in North Central on Saturday.
This was among 499 total cases in the province, which marked the seventh straight day that the total number of cases were over 400. The Saskatoon Zone led the province with 107 new cases.
The province also reported one new death related to COVID-19 on Saturday. The death was reported in the adjacent North East zone.
There have now been 638 deaths related to COVID-19 reported in the province.
Of the 61,558 reported COVID-19 cases in Saskatchewan, 4,234 are considered active.
North Central 2, which is Prince Albert, has 305 active cases. North Central 1, which includes communities such as Christopher Lake, Candle Lake and Meath Park, has 195 active cases and North Central 3 has 90 active cases.
The province did not update the COVID-19 cases for the 0 to 11 age group on Saturday.
Five cases with pending location were added to North Central on Saturday.
According to the province, 36.5 per cent of new cases are in patients under the age of 19 and about 9.2 per cent of new cases were in fully vaccinated patients.
There are currently 228 COVID-19 patients in hospital across the province, 172 of which are not fully vaccinated, with 177 receiving inpatient care and 51 in the ICU. North Central has 28 patients in hospital.
The current seven-day average for new cases is 467, or 38.7 cases per 100,000 population.
Another 397 recoveries were reported on Saturday, bringing the total number of recoveries to 56,591.
Since the start of the pandemic, 14,683 cases are from the North area (6,179 North West, 6,250 North Central and 2,254 North East).
There were 4,468 COVID-19 tests processed in Saskatchewan on Friday. As of Sept. 18, there have been 1,086,823 COVID-19 tests performed in Saskatchewan.
There were 4,251 doses of COVID-19 vaccine administered in Saskatchewan bringing the total number of vaccines administered in the province to 1,515,564.
There were 351 doses administered in the North Central Zone reported on Saturday. Doses were also administered in the adjacent North East, North West, Far North East, Far North West, Central West, Central East, South West, South East, South Central, Regina and Saskatoon.
According to the province 47,753 people in North Central are fully vaccinated.
Province ceased variant testing on all new cases Sept. 13
In a note on the province’s variant of concern report the province stated.
“As of September 13, 2021, the province of Saskatchewan ceased testing for variant type on all new cases using SNP in order to support overall COVID-19 testing. Whole genome sequencing will continue to identify any emerging variants. Note that, as public health investigations proceed, variant of concern case locations may change due as residence locations are confirmed.”
There were 668 confirmed variants of concern (VOC) cases identified by the province in the North Central zone as of Sept. 14.
This was among 12,461 variants of concern identified by screening in Saskatchewan to date. Other regions with identified cases included Regina, Saskatoon, Far North East, Central West, Central East, South West, South Central and South East. There are currently 77 cases with area of residency pending.
There were 87 variants identified in the adjacent North East zone.
Regina led the province with 4,835 identified VOCs.
Of the 10,825 VOCs with lineages identified by whole genome sequencing in Saskatchewan, 7,123 are Alpha (B.1.1.7), 10 are Beta (B.1.351), 474 are Gamma (P.1) and 3,210 are Delta (B.1.617.2).
