There are 111 new cases of COVID-19 to report in Saskatchewan on March 10, bringing the provincial total to 30,029 cases.
One Saskatchewan resident who tested positive for COVID-19 has died. This death was reported in the 80+ age group from the Regina zone. A total of 401 Saskatchewan residents with COVID have died thus far.
There are no new cases of COVID-19 in the South East region. The number of active cases for South East Zone 4, which includes Estevan, remains at three. Twenty-seven cases in the South East are considered active.
The new cases for Saskatchewan are located in the Far North West (3), Far North East (4), North West (11), North East (8), Saskatoon (26), Central East (8) and Regina (41) zones. Ten cases have pending residence information.
Another 140 people have recovered, bringing the total number of recoveries 28,244. One of the recoveries is from the South East region.
A total of 1,384 cases are considered active.
One hundred and thirty-nine (139) people are in hospital. One hundred and twelve (112) people are receiving inpatient care: Far North West (2), Far North East (1), North West (10), North Central (10), North East (2), Saskatoon (44), Central East (4), Regina (37) and South East (2). The number of people in hospital in the South East is down one from March 9.
Twenty-seven people are in intensive care: North West (1), Saskatoon (12), Central East (2) and Regina (12).
There were 2,399 COVID-19 tests processed in Saskatchewan on March 9, including 85 from the South East.
To date, 600,142 COVID-19 tests have been processed in Saskatchewan. As of March 8, when other provincial and national numbers were available, Saskatchewan's per capita rate was 504,763 tests performed per million population. The national rate was 667,070 tests performed per million population.
The seven-day average of daily new cases is 139 (11.4 new cases per 100,000). A chart comparing today's average to data collected over the past several months is available on the Government of Saskatchewan website.
Further statistics on the total number of cases among healthcare workers, breakdowns of total cases by source of infection, age, gender and region, total tests to date and the per capita testing rate can be found on the Government of Saskatchewan website.
An additional 874 doses of COVID-19 vaccine have been given in Saskatchewan, bringing the total number of vaccines administered in the province to 94,386.
The 874 doses of COVID-19 vaccine reported were administered in the following regions: North West (228), North Central (456), Saskatoon (141) and Regina (49).
As of March 10, 53 per cent of Phase 1 health care workers including long-term care and personal care home staff have received their first dose of vaccine.
As of March 10, an additional 26 cases of the B1.1.7 UK variant of concern have been detected in the Regina zone. These cases include sequencing results received from the National Microbiology Laboratory on samples collected between Feb. 12 and 20, and from the Roy Romanow Provincial Laboratory on cases confirmed between Feb. 2 and 28.
This brings the provincial total of confirmed variant of concern cases to 70: 64 B1.1.7 UK and six B1.351 SA.
As of March 10, 2021 all positive COVID-19 cases will have a SNP (single nucleotide polymorphism) test performed to screen for a mutation which is common to all three variants of concern (VOC) and all positive SNP results will be reported on the patient record at MySaskHealthRecord.
VOCs are confirmed through whole genome sequencing where the genetic code of the virus is analyzed on a confirmed case sample to determine all the different mutations present. The Roy Romanow Provincial Laboratory can also screen for VOCs using a SNP analysis which looks for a common mutation associated with all three VOCs.
SNP tests are faster and will be done on all positive tests with results within 24 hours, once a COVID-19 positive sample is identified or received at the testing laboratory. A positive result on a SNP test will be considered presumptively positive while whole genome sequencing is completed to determine the VOC type, which takes about a week.
Once a VOC is confirmed through whole genome sequencing, it will be included in public reporting at Saskatchewan.ca.
