Sask. reports 191 new COVID-19 cases; identifies 98 more variant cases

An employee is pictured at the Roy Romanow Provincial Lab. (Supplied)

REGINA — Saskatchewan recorded 191 new cases of COVID-19 Wednesday, along with two more deaths and 176 recoveries.

VARIANT CASES

The province identified an additional 98 variant cases. As of Tuesday, 1,673 variants of concern have been identified through screening. The variant cases are in the Far Northeast (one), North Central (six), Saskatoon (46), Central West (5), Central East (26), Regina (1,348), Southwest (one), South Central (128) and Southeast (109) zones.

Labs have genome sequenced 495 cases; 487 are B.1.1.7 – first identified in the U.K. – and eight are B.1.3.5.1, which was first identified in South Africa.

In total, 2,168 presumed and confirmed variant cases have been identified in the province.

HOSPITALIZATIONS & DEATHS

There are 166 people in hospital across the province, according to the government. Regina currently has the greatest number of COVID-19 patients in hospital with 89, including 15 people in the ICU.

One person who died was in their 70s and from the Regina zone; the second person was older than 80 and from the Southwest zone.

DAILY STATISTICS

The new cases are located in the Far Northeast (one), Northwest (three), North Central (five), Northeast (three), Saskatoon (20), Central East (15), Regina (98), Southwest (six), South Central (20) and South East (15) zones. There are five cases pending residence information.

The seven-day average of daily new cases is 201 – an increase from 173 one week ago.

There were 2,978 tests processed in the province on Tuesday.

Saskatchewan currently has 1,955 active cases.

VACCINATIONS

There were 8,491 doses of COVID-19 vaccine administered on Tuesday. The shots were given in the Far Northwest (295), Far North Central (two), Far Northeast (610), North Central (141), Northeast (509), Saskatoon (2,080), Central West (1,135), Central East (751), Regina (1,201), South Central (1,144) and Southeast (623) zones.

So far, 192,927 doses of vaccine have been given in Saskatchewan.