The Saskatchewan government says new COVID-19 infection and vaccination status data will now include children and symptomatic testing will be prioritized.
Starting Tuesday, daily updates will now include people under 12 on the government’s online table and will later be integrated into the dashboard in the coming weeks, according to officials.
“Vaccination remains the best protection against COVID-19,” read the government statement on Tuesday.
A total of 1,503,385 doses of COVID-19 vaccine have been administered to date in Saskatchewan, according to the dashboard. The table showed that 426 of Tuesday’s 506 new cases were people who were unvaccinated and 101 of them are in the under-12 age group.
Two of Saskatchewan’s 225 hospital patients who have tested positive for the virus are in the youngest age group. Both hospitalizations in the under-12 age group are categorized as being in inpatient care.
The government said it’s working on providing hospitalization data by age and vaccination status as part of the dashboard and this information will be posted “when available.”
Additionally, the Saskatchewan Health Authority is prioritizing processing symptomatic test results in order to support contact tracing investigations and prevent further COVID-19 transmission.
“Saskatchewan residents may be asked to provide negative test results for the purposes of travel or event admittance.… If you are seeking asymptomatic testing for non-essential purposes, test results may not be available within a specified timeframe,” read the statement.
“If you require a negative test due to being unvaccinated/only partially vaccinated, private lab services are available as an option for asymptomatic testing.”
People and businesses who are interested in private labs offering COVID-19 testing in Saskatchewan can visit the government’s website.