COVID-19 in Sask.: 499 new cases, highest number of hospitalizations since February

The province is reporting one additional death from COVID-19 and 499 new cases of the illness on Saturday.

There are now 228 people in hospital with the illness — the highest that number has been since Feb. 3, when there were 229 hospitalizations, according to the province's online COVID-19 dashboard.

Among the 228 people now in hospital, 172 are not fully vaccinated, the province says.

There are 51 people in intensive care with COVID-19. That's just shy of this year's peak for COVID-19 patients in intensive care — there were 52 on April 23.

The seven-day average of new COVID-19 case numbers is now 467 per day, compared to 123 a month ago.

Saturday's new cases are located in the following zones:

• Far northwest: 21.
• Far north central: one.
• Far northeast: 31.
• Northwest: 59.
• North central: 76.
• Northeast: 25.
• Saskatoon: 107.
• Central west : 10.
• Central east: nine.
• Regina: 62.
• Southwest:12.
• South central: 25.
• Southeast: 26.

Residence information is pending for another 35 cases.

There have now been a total of 61,558 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the province since the start of the pandemic, 4,329 of which are currently considered active. There have now been 638 deaths from the illness.

Saskatoon has the most active cases, with 1,030.

About one in 10 new cases reported Saturday were among people who are fully vaccinated, according to the province, while about 36 per cent of the new cases are in the 19 and under age category.

An additional 4,251 vaccines have been administered — 2,334 first doses and 1,917 second — which is almost 1,000 more new doses than were reported on Friday. Vaccination numbers have been rising since Sept. 14.

There were also 4,468 more tests done.

As of Sept. 16, Saskatchewan's per capita rate of testing was 914,105 tests per million people. The national rate was 1,104,415 tests performed per million.