More detailed COVID-19 statistics for school-aged children to be released next week

École St. Elizabeth is pictured in Regina's East end. (Jaden Lee Lincoln / CTV News Regina)

REGINA — The Government of Saskatchewan said it will be providing more detailed COVID-19 information specific to school aged children, with students back in classes.

Dr. Saqib Shahab, the province’s Chief Medical Health Officer, said while cases in children have remained relatively low since the beginning of the pandemic, now is a good time to take a closer look at this age group.

“Since that time we haven’t seen a large number of cases in that zero to 19 age group, but through active case finding and active case tracing where whole households with a case would offer testing like in the north west, we did see some cases in that zero to 19 age group,” Shahab said.

The province said it will release data for children aged 0-19, broken down by age and testing positivity rates. Shahab noted these statistics could rise in the coming weeks with more students being tested.

“With schools opening, we are going to obviously look more closely at those age groups,” Shahab said. “Is transmission increasing in those age groups? And what is the exposure setting? Is it within school, within community?”

The first report, for the week of September 6-12, will be available on September 17.