The weekly COVID-19 integrated epidemiological (EPI) report showed an increase in hospitalizations related to COVID-19 reported between April 3 and April 9.
There were also 20 deaths reported over this time, a decrease of four over the previous week. Five of those deaths occurred prior to April 2, but were not reported as COVID deaths until the following week. The remaining 15 deaths occurred between April 3 and April 9.
North Central reported two COVID deaths. There were five reported in the Central East zone, four in Regina, two each in the Saskatoon, North West and South Central zones and single deaths in the Far North West, South West and South East zones.
Of the 20 new deaths reported, 10 were in the 80 or older age groups, six were in the 70 to 79 age group, and two in the 40 to 59 age group. The 60 to 69 and 20 to 39 age groups, reported one death each. Ten deaths were females and 10 deaths were males.
The report shows 403 COVID-19 hospitalizations, an increase of 49 from last week. There were 25 individuals reported in the ICU, an increase of five from the previous week.
Of these 153 were COVID-19 related illness, 232 were incidental COVID-19 infections and 19 patients were under investigation.
The province also reported 49 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in North Central from April 3 to April 9.
This was among 1,051 total cases confirmed in the province. These are only lab confirmed cases and not rapid antigen test confirmed cases.
The 1,051 new cases were confirmed reflecting about 0.9 laboratory-confirmed cases per 1,000 population.
The Saskatoon Zone led the province with 294 new cases.
The highest proportion of new cases for the week was in Central East and Central West zones (both 1.0 per 1,000 population). The lowest were Far North West, Far North Central, and Far North East (0.4 per 1,000 population each).
The proportion of new laboratory-confirmed cases was 0.9 per 1,000 population, unchanged from the last week.
The province warns that rates should be interpreted with caution because they do not include cases detected by home rapid-antigen test kits.
There were 375 variants of concern (VOCs) reported during the week of April 3 to April 9 compared to 440 in the previous report.
Of the total VOCs reported in the past two weeks, 100 per cent were the Omicron VOCs.
As well, 41.3 per cent of Omicron VOC were of sublineage BA.2 which was almost double the previous week. The Omicron BA.2 sublineage is being seen across the province.
The province also reported 16 new outbreaks in Long Term Care, care homes and personal care homes. There was one new outbreak reported in the North Central zone in the reporting period.
As of April 2, of the population five years and older, 85.7 per cent received at least one dose of a two-dose COVID-19 vaccine and 80.7 per cent completed a series.
Among the population 18 years and older, 51.3 per cent had received at least one booster vaccination.
During the week of April 3 to 9, 2022, 2,654 doses of COVID-19 vaccine were administered, of which 453 were pediatric primary series doses and 1,937 were booster doses.
