COVID-19 Weekly EPI Report

February 25, 2022

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Existing Public Health Order Lifts Monday

The remaining public health orders, including the requirement of masking in designated indoor public spaces, will remain in effect until the end of day, Sunday, February 27. All public health orders will be removed as of Monday, February 28, 2022.

Residents may still continue to mask in any location where they feel it appropriate or safer to do so, based on their personal risk assessment. All are asked to be respectful of the decisions individuals make.

Public health continues to encourage residents to take the preventative measures that have proven to reduce the spread of COVID-19 including wearing a mask if needed, taking advantage of free rapid testing, regular handwashing, staying home when ill and getting vaccinated, including your third/booster dose as soon as you are eligible. Booster/third dose eligibility now includes everyone 12 years of age and older.

Prevent Transmission, Stay Home if You Are Sick

If you have cold or flu-like symptoms, stay home and use an at-home rapid test, available for free at more than 600 locations in the province.

If you test positive for COVID-19 either on a rapid antigen or PCR test, it remains the recommendation that you self-isolate for five days from the date of test or 24 hours since any fever has resolved (without the aid of fever-reducing medications) and all other symptoms are improving for at least 48 hours, whichever is later. Notify your contacts so that they may self-monitor or test.
If you test positive but are asymptomatic (have no symptoms), it is recommended that you stay home for five days to limit potential asymptomatic transmission.
If you test negative on a rapid test but you still have symptoms, stay home until your symptoms are improving for at least 48 hours, even if you have multiple negative rapid tests.

Living with COVID means assessing your personal risk and using available preventative measures to reduce the risk to yourself and those you care for. Information on self-monitoring, self-isolating and self-managing is available at saskatchewan.ca/covid-19.

Booster Dose Interval Alignment

All residents age 12 years and older are eligible to receive their booster dose five months after the second dose of their primary series. Previously, residents 18 years and older were eligible to receive their booster dose three months after their second dose.

Booster doses are recommended to achieve enduring protection against COVID-19 transmission and severe outcomes. Breakthrough data indicates that this timeframe will provide a greater sustained impact on the effects of waning immunity, including hospitalizations.

Immuno-compromised individuals age 12 years and older may still receive their booster dose three months following their primary series. Information on recommended intervals for booster doses is available at saskatchewan.ca/COVID-19.

If you received your third/booster dose at the three month interval, you do not need a fourth dose at this time.

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, February 13 to Saturday, February 19, 2022. The hospitalization data is a comparison from Wednesday, February 16 to noon February 23, 2022.

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

Summary for the week of February 13 – 19, 2022

9,142 laboratory tests were performed in Saskatchewan reflecting 7.6 tests performed per 1,000 population.
The number of tests was just over three-quarters of the number of tests in the previous week.
About one-fifth of laboratory tests were positive (weekly test positivity of 14.4 per cent).
Test positivity was about two-thirds of the test positivity value in the previous week.
1,407 new cases were confirmed reflecting about 1.2 laboratory-confirmed cases per 1,000 population.
The number of new laboratory-confirmed cases was more than one-half of the number of new cases in the previous week.
There were 162 new lineage results reported this week. Of the 162 variants of concern identified by whole genome sequencing, 100 per cent were Omicron.
Based on data recorded in Panorama, the public health database, there were 37 newly reported COVID-19 deaths, which is slightly lower than the number reported in the previous week (42).
There were 38.8 COVID-like illness patients per 1,000 in emergency department visits, a decrease from 39.9 per 1,000 the previous week.
Seven (7) confirmed new COVID-19 outbreaks in long-term care and care home settings were reported this week. This is almost one-third of the 22 outbreaks that were reported the previous week.
As of February 19, of the population five years and older, 85.5 per cent received at least one dose of a two-dose COVID-19 vaccine and 80.1 per cent completed a series.
Among the population 18 years and older, 50.4 per cent had received at least one booster vaccination.
As of the week of February 21, there have been 50 Paxlovid prescriptions provided and 205 monoclonal antibody infusion treatments administered.
There are just under 18 million rapid anitigen test kits that have been distributed in the province. They are easily accessible at 630 locations around the province.