Rent reduced for riders, early budget items approved by Regina Council
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Council retroactively slashed $1.33 million in rent owed by the Roughriders.
Saskatchewan has yet to see a case of the Omicron COVID-19 variant.
During a media conference Tuesday, Dr. Saqib Shahab — the province’s chief medical health officer — said the province had been told of 154 residents who had returned to Canada from countries in southern Africa where the variant was discovered.
“They have all been followed up and are quarantining at home for two weeks,” Shahab said of those people. “They have all been directed to get tested (and) about a third have been tested. So far, we have not detected any positive cases (of Omicron), but this process will continue currently with individuals who came back over the last two to three weeks.
“Prospectively also, as the federal government has announced, travellers from those impacted countries will have to submit to testing and quarantine as well as possibly additional countries where Omicron transmission is flagged as a concern.”
Shahab said all positive cases in Saskatchewan undergo whole genome sequencing and are tested to see if they’re anything other than the Delta variant, the dominant strain in the province.
“We are confident that we will be able to detect Omicron either due to travel or due to community transmission,” Shahab said. “So far, (there have been) no detections in Saskatchewan, but as we know, it has been detected primarily due to travel in many other provinces.”
On Tuesday, Saskatchewan reported 47 new cases of COVID-19 as well as 70 recoveries and three deaths.
The fatalities comprised one person in the 40-to-59 age group, one individual in the 60-to-79 age range and one person in the 80-and-over group. The deaths were reported in the Regina, southeast and far northwest regions.
To date, 934 Saskatchewan residents have died due to COVID.
A look at the numbers
The new cases were reported in the Saskatoon (13), central-east (10), north-central (seven), far northeast (four), northwest (three), far northwest (two), Regina (two), central-west (one), southwest (one) and south-central (one) zones. The hometowns of three cases are pending.
The cases comprised 32 unvaccinated people, 14 individuals who were fully vaccinated and one person who was partially vaccinated. The unvaccinated group included eight kids under the age of five as well as 10 children between the ages of five and 11.
To date, there have been 81,462 cases reported in Saskatchewan along with 79,915 recoveries.
The active case count dropped to 613, the lowest that number has been since it was 549 on Aug. 6.
There were 131 COVID patients in Saskatchewan hospitals, including 31 in intensive care. There also are two Saskatchewan residents in Ontario ICUs.
Vaccination update
The 1,180 new doses reported comprised 889 first doses and 291 second shots.
To date, there have been 1,764,434 vaccinations done in Saskatchewan, including 840,796 second shots. There also have been 118,853 third and fourth doses administered in the province.
As of Tuesday, 87 per cent of Saskatchewan residents aged 12 and over and 82 per cent of those five and up have received their first doses. As well, 82 per cent of those 12 and up and 74 per cent of people five and older are fully vaccinated.
In the two weeks since kids five to 11 became eligible to get vaccinated, more than 36,000 — or 32 per cent of those eligible — have been vaccinated.
In the past week, two monoclonal antibody infusion treatments were given, increasing the provincial total to date to 22.
Sk Vax Wallet app updated
According to the government, the MySaskHealthRecord digital QR proof of vaccination certificate now can be used to prove vaccination status at border entry points during international travel.
The SK Vax Wallet app has been updated to display the full vaccination certificate with the Saskatchewan and Canada identifiers to support international travel.
“Once the app is updated on a user’s device, the display should automatically show the new ‘View full vaccination certificate’ feature,” the government said in a release. “Timing of the update may be dependent on the version of the device being used and internet access. Users can also check the Apple and Google Play app stores for an update.”