According to a press release issued this afternoon, the Ministry of Health and the Saskatchewan Health Authority have indentified an instrument error that occurred at the Roy Romanow Provincial Laboratory, resulting in up to 255 invalid COVID-19 test results from August 18 to 22.
The samples have been retested and 206 are inconsistent with the first result. In order to confirm that invalid tests are negative, a full reconciliation of the data is underway and should be completed by tomorrow.
Fifty-four residents at long-term care homes in Regina previously testing positive have been re-tested and confirmed to be negative for COVID-19. Further investigation is underway to determine if some of the current long-term care outbreaks can be declared over and family presence be resumed at these facilities. Affected individuals will be contacted to confirm their test results
There are four new deaths to report today. The provincial total is now at 592.
There are 139 new cases of COVID-19 to report in Saskatchewan on August 24, 2021.
The new cases are located in the following zones: Saskatoon (46), Far North West (18), North Central (16), North West (13), Far North East (8), South East (6), Central West (5), Regina (4), Far North Central (2), North East (2), Central East (2), and South Central (1).
The new case in the South Central is located in the South Central 2 sub-zone, which includes Moose Jaw and area.
Sixteen cases are pending residence information.
Almost one half (46.8 per cent) of new cases are in the 20 to 39 years age category.
According to the provincial government, of the 139 new cases, 114 people are not vaccinated, nine are partially vaccinated, and 16 are fully vaccinated.
Twenty-six cases with pending residence information were assigned to the Far North East (15), Far North West (6), North Central (3), Saskatoon (1), and Regina (1) zones.
One Saskatchewan resident tested out-of-province was added to the case counts in the Far North East zone.
There are now 52,800 reported cases, including 1,625 active cases.
The seven-day average of new COVID-19 case number is 184 (15.3 new cases per 100,000).
A total of 12,437 Variants of Concern have been identified by screening in Saskatchewan, reported in the following zones: Regina (4,835), Saskatoon (2,180), South East (1,158), South Central (894), North West (883), North Central (665), Central East (654), South West (416), Far North West (338), Central West (150), Far North East (98), North East (86), and Far North Central (4). There are 76 screened VOCs with residence pending.
An additional 452 doses of COVID-19 vaccine have been given in Saskatchewan, bringing the total number of vaccines administered in the province to 1,462,380.
More information about vaccines is available on the government’s website.
There are 100 people in hospital. Eighty-six people are receiving inpatient care in the following zones: Saskatoon (33), North Central (19), Regina (17), North West (4), South Central (4), South West (3), North East (3), Far North West (2), and Central West (1). Fourteen people are in intensive care in the following zones: Saskatoon (9), North Central (2), Regina (2), and South Central (1). Of the 100 patients, 69 are not fully vaccinated.
One hundred and nineteen more people have recovered, increasing the provincial total to 50,583 recoveries.
There were 2,044 COVID-19 tests processed in Saskatchewan. To date, 1,003,767 COVID-19 tests have been processed.
For more information, visit www.saskatchewan.ca/COVID19. You can find the maps and the breakdown of cases by region on the government's website.
