A record number of new COVID-related deaths were announced Saturday.
In the daily news release, the Ministry of Health reported 11 deaths in the province. This is the largest single day death total since the pandemic hit Saskatchewan.
Of those, eight were 80 or older. Three of those people were from Saskatoon, four were from Regina and one was from the southeast region. The other three deaths were one person in the 70-to-79 age group in the southeast zone, another aged 60-to-69 in the northeast region and one more aged 50-to-59 in the Saskatoon area.
Another record number was also in Saturday’s update. There were 713 recoveries. Along with 274 new cases, they caused the active case total to drop to 4,097.
The new cases were in the Saskatoon (78), Regina (57), northwest (43), north-central (23), far northwest (eight), far northeast (19), southwest (two), northeast (five), southeast (ten), central-east (13), south-central (12) and central-west (two) areas. The location is under investigation for two new cases.
The seven-day average of daily new cases is 292, or 24.1 new cases per 100,000 population.
Since March, there have been 11,749 cases in the province. Of those, 7,566 people have recovered, while 86 have died.
The province expects another drop in active cases sometime in the near future, as they review older cases.
“It is anticipated that the number of cases designated as “active” will decline as older cases are reviewed and potentially shifted to recovered status. This work is ongoing,” the release said.
There are 118 people in hospital, including 23 in intensive care. That number includes nine ICU cases in Regina, seven in Saskatoon, six in the north-central zone and one in the southwest.
There were 3,622 tests performed in Saskatchewan Friday, raising our total number of tests since March to 383,000.