COVID-19 Weekly EPI Report

March 18, 2022

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Self-monitor, self-test and get both vaccine doses plus your booster to help prevent COVID-19 transmission.

If you are experiencing even mild cold or flu-like symptoms including cough, sore throat and sneezing without fever, it is recommended that you stay home, use rapid antigen testing and self-isolate based on those test results. Information on how to test, including instruction on how to use at-home test kits for swabbing both nose and throat, is available at saskatchewan.ca/covid-19.

More than 19.2 million rapid antigen test kits have been distributed in the province. They are easily accessible at 630 locations.

Third Vaccination Dose Provides Optimal Protection Against Omicron

Receiving your third dose provides optimal protection against the current variant of COVID-19. Preventing severe outcomes will not only reduce your odds of illness and the risk of developing long COVID symptoms, but further reduce pressure on Saskatchewan acute care settings.

This week, there were more than 5,000 Saskatchewan Health Authority vaccination appointments available in addition to pharmacies throughout the province offering COVID-19 vaccinations. Book your appointment to complete your COVID-19 vaccination series and receive your booster dose.

Weekly COVID-19 Epi Report

Issued Thursdays, the Ministry of Health’s COVID-19 integrated epidemiology (epi) report utilizes multiple data sources and includes laboratory-confirmed cases, deaths, tests, vaccination information provincially and by zones, as well as hospital and ICU census trends and distribution of rapid antigen tests. The epi report this week looks at data from Sunday, March 6 to Saturday, March 12, 2022. The hospitalization data is a comparison from Thursday, March 9 to noon March 16, 2022.

The integrated epi report can be found online at saskatchewan.ca/COVID-19-cases.

Summary for the week of March 6 – 12, 2022

6,826 laboratory tests were performed in Saskatchewan reflecting 5.7 tests performed per 1,000 population.
The number of tests was about 90 per cent of the number of tests in the previous week (7,518).
About one in nine laboratory tests were positive (weekly test positivity of 11.8 per cent).
Percentage of positive tests (11.8 per cent) was lower than in the previous week (12.7 per cent).
832 new cases were confirmed reflecting about 0.7 laboratory-confirmed cases per 1,000 population.
The number of new laboratory-confirmed cases was about four-fifths of the number of new cases in the previous week (1,013).
There were 350 new lineage results reported this week. Of the 350 variants of concern identified by whole genome sequencing, 99.7 per cent were Omicron.
There were 28 newly reported COVID-19 deaths compared to 13 in the previous week.
There were 27.1 COVID-like illness patients per 1,000 emergency department visits which is lower than the average weekly rate in the previous six weeks (38.9 per week/1,000 visits).
Ten (10) confirmed COVID-19 outbreaks in long-term care and care home settings were reported this week.
As of March 12, of the population five years and older, 85.6 per cent received at least one dose of a two-dose COVID-19 vaccine and 80.5 per cent completed their series.
Among the population 18 years and older, 51 per cent had received at least one booster vaccination.
As of the week of March 14, there have been 94 Paxlovid prescriptions provided and 247 monoclonal antibody infusion treatments administered.
More than 19.2 million rapid antigen test kits that have been distributed in the province. They are easily accessible at 630 locations.