Health Minister Jim Reiter was joined by chief medical health officer Dr. Saqib Shahab to announce 23 more positive cases of COVID-19 in northern Saskatchewan, along with an outbreak in a Prince Albert Hospital.
“Aggressive testing and contact tracing will continue in the days ahead so we can quickly identify positive cases and have those individuals self-isolate and receive medical help if necessary,” said Reiter.
Reiter said the Prince Albert Victoria Hospital now has a situation where a patient initially tested negative for COVID-19 but later tested positive. This is the second Saskatchewan hospital outbreak with the other being in Lloydminster.
“With this kind of situation in a health facility, they are following protocols to protect the patients for dealing with this kind of situation,” said Reiter.
Shahab said the province is concerned with the 26 new confirmed cases, 23 of which are in northern Saskatchewan. The other three are in the Saskatoon area.
“We are concerned with the increase in cases which is an extremely challenging situation in terms of a rapidly expanding community outbreak,” said Shahab.
“Significant efforts are now being made by local public health with support by the SHA to do active testing, case contact tracing and additional measures to reduce the outbreak,” he added.
Saskatchewan Health Authority (SHA) CEO Scott Livingstone said although the outbreak in the Prince Albert hospital only involved one patient, the patient had been in the hospital for a prolonged period and had been exposed to a number of healthcare workers.
“The outbreak was declared because we are currently working through the investigation and determining who was in direct contact and what actual staff will have to be isolated for an extended period of time,” said Livingstone.
To date, Saskatchewan has 415 cases of COVID-19. Of those cases, 112 are considered active, 297 have recovered and six have died.
Eight-one cases are in north Saskatchewan and 77 cases are located in the far north.
