UPDATE: Saskatchewan COVID-19 hospitalizations briefly underreported this week: province
Eight COVID-19-related deaths were reported by Saskatchewan health officials on Tuesday.
Two death deaths were reported in the Saskatoon zone — a person in their 70s and a person aged 80-plus. Two deaths were also reported in the southeast zone — a person in their 70s and a person aged 80-plus.
Deaths of a person in their 40s in the northwest zone, a person in their 50s in the Regina zone and two people in their 60s in the northwest and north-central zone were also reported.
It raised the death toll in the province to 314 since the start of the coronavirus pandemic.
The province reported 223 new cases on Tuesday, bringing the overall total to 24,236. Officials reported 266 recoveries, with a total of 21,602 individuals now recovered.
The majority of the new cases were in the north-central (28), Saskatoon (38) and Regina (65) zones.
New cases were also reported in the far northwest (14), far north-central (8), far northeast (8), northwest (18), northeast (7), central-west (6), central-east (3), south-central (7) and southeast (8) zones. Officials said they are awaiting residence information in 13.
The seven-day average of daily new cases sits at 227 — 18.5 new cases per 100,000 population.
Officials said hospitalization data is not available as they continue to update data reporting times.
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Health officials said 1,974 tests were processed in the province on Monday, bringing overall tests processed to 512,512.
Vaccine distribution
The total number of vaccines administered in the province is now at 35,575 after 106 doses were administered on Monday — 73 in the Saskatoon zone and 23 in the far northeast.
Health officials said this represents 109 per cent of doses received in the province to-date, with officials saying the overage is due to efficiencies in drawing extra doses from the vaccine vials.
“Our health-care workers have been doing a great job … of ensuring that they’re getting needles into the arms of people in this province as quickly as possible,” Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe said at a COVID-19 briefing on Tuesday.
“But those efforts have pretty much ground to a standstill here today and in recent days as we have not received any vaccine shipments in over a week now.”
Moe said the province expects to receive the next shipment of 5,850 Pfizer doses within the next two days.
“(This shipment) will be used to do second shots in North Battleford, in Saskatoon and in Prince Albert as well as first shots in the community of Moosomin,” he said.
“We are expecting our next shipment of 6,000 Moderna shot doses to come in later this week … those doses will primarily be used for second shots in the far north and the northwest regions of the province, as well as a few first shots in the west-central region, in the communities of Rosetown and Kindersley.
“We need more vaccines and we need them more quickly. The federal government says that we can expect vaccine deliveries to really ramp up in the second quarter of this year and we would like to see that happen sooner, if possible, into Q1.”
For the first phase of the government’s immunization plan, which aims to vaccinate 190,000, Moe said less than 10 per cent of the vaccines have been received.
“Phase 1 of our immunization plan covers health-care workers, it covers residents and staff of our long-term care homes and those other folks that are over 70 years old,” Moe said.
“Right now, as we all know, we are working with vaccines that require two doses or two shots so we need, for those 190,000 people, about 380,000 vaccine doses just to cover everyone in phase one.
“This week’s shipments … (bumps) that number to about 12 per cent of our Phase 1 target. So we have a long ways to go just to get through Phase 1.”
Moe said the government will be releasing its sequencing plan for Phase 2 and more wide-scale vaccinations later this week or early next week.
“There will be many options for where you can go to get your shot when it was when it is your turn,” he said.
“That is our path out of this pandemic … By getting vaccinated, you’re not only protecting yourself, you’re helping protect those around you so everyone should get vaccinated when it’s your turn to do so and we’ll have more to say about when that time is in the coming days.”
— With files from Thomas Piller
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