The Saskatchewan government gave an update on new coronavirus cases in the province on Friday.
Health officials said there were 30 new cases in the daily update, with the overall total for the province growing to 1,541 since the first case was reported in March.
Most of the new cases are located in the south-west region with 23, according to a press release. The south-central region had six, north-central had one and the last case is pending residence information.
Health officials said all of Friday’s new infections and 108 of 174 active cases are in “communal living settings.”
Earlier this week at a press conference, Saskatchewan’s chief medical health officer Dr. Saqib Shahab said he wasn’t going to comment on specific ethnic cultural groups in regards to new cases.
“We have already seen that whether it’s a workplace, communal living setting, cases and clusters do happen… (Saskatchewan Health Authority has) been working closely with all communities, urban, rural, remote,” he said on Tuesday.
“I think we need to allow public health to continue to work with all communities, to support individuals and communities when there’s a case or a cluster. And we’ve had great success and that’s what we want to see.
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“But I’m very conscious of the fact that I certainly don’t want to keep pointing to specific cultural or religious groups in an ongoing fashion. I think we need to respect that COVID can happen anywhere to anyone. And we just need to deal with it in a systematic way and communities need to work closely with public health.”
Ten people are currently in hospital — five are receiving inpatient care and five are in intensive care.
Twenty-two more people have recovered, bringing total recoveries to 1,347.
There have been 20 COVID-19-related deaths in Saskatchewan.
To date, 118,470 tests have been carried out in the province.
Questions about COVID-19? Here are some things you need to know:
Symptoms can include fever, cough and difficulty breathing — very similar to a cold or flu. Some people can develop a more severe illness. People most at risk of this include older adults and people with severe chronic medical conditions like heart, lung or kidney disease. If you develop symptoms, contact public health authorities.
To prevent the virus from spreading, experts recommend frequent handwashing and coughing into your sleeve. They also recommend minimizing contact with others, staying home as much as possible and maintaining a distance of two metres from other people if you go out. In situations where you can’t keep a safe distance from others, public health officials recommend the use of a non-medical face mask or covering to prevent spreading the respiratory droplets that can carry the virus. In some provinces and municipalities across the country, masks or face coverings are now mandatory in indoor public spaces.
For full COVID-19 coverage from Global News, click here.
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