Sask. reports 216 new COVID-19 cases; 171 false-positives removed from case count

COVID-19 debated at the Legislature WATCH: On day two of Spring Session at the Saskatchewan Legislature COVID-19 was again front and centre. Allison Bamford explains.

REGINA — The Government of Saskatchewan reported 216 new confirmed COVID-19 cases on Wednesday.

Additionally, 171 false-positive cases were removed from the total case count.

On Tuesday the Government of Saskatchewan said it had identified a “testing issue” at the Roy Romanow Provincial Laboratory in Regina that led to a “large number” of invalid tests.

The province said an instrument error at the laboratory resulted in 255 invalid COVID-19 test results between Aug. 18 and 22.

New cases are located in the Far North West (five), Far North Central (one), Far North East (29), North West (19), North Central (21), North East (13), Saskatoon (80), Central West (six), Central East (five), Regina (eight), South West (five), South Central (two) and South East (five) zones. Seventeen new cases are pending residence information.

There are 1,528 cases considered active.

The province said two-fifths, or 40.7 per cent, of new cases are in the 20 to 39 age category.

A total of 174 of the 216 new cases are in unvaccinated residents. Another 11 are partially vaccinated, while 31 are fully vaccinated.

There are 108 people in hospital related to COVID-19, including 20 patients in intensive care.

The seven-day average of daily new cases is 172, or 14.3 per 100,000 population.

The government said a total of 12,441 COVID-19 cases have been identified as variants of concern. Of those cases, 9,046 have been whole genome sequenced; 7,106 are Alpha (B.1.1.7), 1,474 are Delta (B.1.617.2), 456 are Gamma (P.1), and 10 are Beta (B.1.351).

Health care workers have administered 1,464,324 doses of vaccine – up 1,944 doses from Tuesdays data.