Murray Wood: Who's hot... and who's not
Every Friday, Murray Wood takes a look at the week's news and decides who's hot... and who's not. This week's list inclu...
While the test positivity rate for COVID-19 in Saskatchewan has dropped since the first two weeks of January, the number of deaths due to the virus has remained consistent.
According to the last Community Respiratory Illness Surveillance Program report, issued Thursday, 18 people died in the province between Jan. 15 and this past Saturday. There were 18 deaths reported by the Ministry of Health between Jan. 1 and Jan. 14.
There were 11 deaths reported between Jan. 15 and Jan. 21, and seven in the week ending Saturday.
The number of positive lab tests decreased from 371 in the first week of January to 242 last week. In that same span, the test positivity rate dropped from 6.9 per cent to 4.4 per cent.
Influenza cases continue to dwindle in Saskatchewan.
There were 32 positive laboratory tests for the flu reported in the first week of January, but just seven in the week ending Saturday. The test positivity rate fell from 2.1 per cent to 0.6 per cent last week.
There haven’t been any flu-related deaths reported in 2023.
The number of Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV) cases in Saskatchewan remained relatively stable — it was 159 three weeks ago and 157 last week — but the test positivity rate has climbed to 15.9 per cent.
In the first week of January, data showed that 4.6 per cent of Saskatchewan students were absent due to an illness. That number climbed to 10.3 per cent last week.
COVID-19
There were 61 people in Saskatchewan hospitals with COVID in the week ending Saturday, a drop from 88 two weeks earlier. Five people were in intensive care with COVID last week, down from eight two weeks before.
Cases last week were mostly among the 20-to-64 age group (45 per cent) and 65-and-over group (43 per cent).
The number of outbreaks in high-risk settings rose from two in the week of Jan. 15-21 to nine this past week.
At 51.8 per cent, the Regina region was the only area in the province where more than 50 per cent of residents were up to date on their COVID vaccinations.
Only 47 per cent of people in the province aged 50 and over had had more than one booster dose as of Saturday, and only 21 per cent of those five and up have got their latest booster shot in the past six months.
Influenza
Four of the seven new flu cases in the past week were among the 20-to-64 age group.
There weren’t any flu-related hospitalizations or ICU admissions in the province in the week ending Saturday, nor were there any influenza outbreaks in high-risk settings reported.
As of Dec. 31, 25 per cent of the Saskatchewan population had received a flu shot, a 12 per cent decrease compared to the same time last year.
Other Respiratory Viruses
The majority of the RSV cases reported in Saskatchewan last week were in the 0-to-4 age group (95), with another 24 in the 65-and-over age group.
The number of RSV-related hospitalizations fell from 66 in the first week of January to 55 in the week ending Saturday. There were six ICU admissions due to the virus last week, down from eight in the week ending Jan. 7.
