Saskatchewan is entering the final weekend of September 2021 with another broken record for COVID-19 hospitalizations.
On Friday, the provincial government announced there were 276 people in Saskatchewan hospitals due to COVID-19, making it the fourth consecutive day the province has set a new record on that front.
Of the 276 people in hospitals, 61 are in intensive care units, which also makes for a new ICU record.
Health officials announced Friday that five more residents who tested positive for the virus had died, bringing the provincial death toll to 663.
Saskatchewan is reporting 528 new infections, pushing the provincial reported total to 63,402 cases.
New cases were located in the following zones:
- far northwest (37)
- far northeast (18)
- northwest (96)
- north central (57)
- northeast (16)
- Saskatoon (96)
- central west (15)
- central east (20)
- Regina (48)
- southwest (28)
- south central (32)
- southeast (34)
On the recovery side, the province has announced 503 new recoveries, bringing the provincial total to 59,005 since the pandemic began.
Active cases have increased to 4,734 from 4,715 on Thursday.
The province’s seven-day daily average of new COVID-19 cases is at 478, or 39.7 new cases per 100,000 people.
According to health officials, less than one-third or 31.6 per cent of new cases are in the age category of 20-to-39. In addition, less than one in five people or 18.4 per cent of new cases eligible for vaccination were fully vaccinated.
Regarding COVID tests, health workers reported 3,957 new tests on Friday.
The government noted that more than 130 more people rolled up their sleeves to receive a COVID-19 vaccine compared to Thursday’s numbers with 5,066 new reported doses on Friday.
There are 725,237 fully vaccinated residents in the province.