The daily COVID-19 dashboard reading from the Government of Saskatchewan website produced another mixed day of numbers.

The latest update showed the province recorded 126 new cases of the novel coronavirus from 1,496 COVID-19 tests, the lowest those two numbers have been since August 17 when there were 107 new cases from 1,468 tests.

However, there were 10 new virus-related deaths in Saskatchewan: six residents between the ages of 60 and 79, three in the 80-plus age group and one person between the ages of 40 and 59. The province’s death toll due to COVID-19 is now 827.

The latest update had 400 recoveries, leaving 2,538 active cases in Saskatchewan. From that number, there are 286 individuals in hospital, including 69 infections receiving treatment in an I-C-U. That number doesn’t include 12 people who have been transferred from Saskatchewan to Ontario, three of them transported on Monday.

Plus, there were 1,007 doses of COVID-19 vaccine administered Monday with 650 of those shots making recipients fully vaccinated. According to the Ministry of Health’s weekly update, 77 per cent of provincial residents aged 12-and-over are fully vaccinated while 85 per cent have received at least one dose.

People trust their family physicians to guide their health care decisions and supporting conversations on the safety and effectiveness of vaccines can only protect more residents during the pandemic.

Work is underway to expand COVID-19 vaccine available through physician offices throughout the province.  Allowing physicians the option of having COVID-19 vaccine available in their offices on a regular basis will increase accessibility for patients, increase vaccination rates and reduce COVID-19 transmission.

The Ministry of Health is implementing new temporary fee codes to compensate physicians for counselling unvaccinated patients in their office while they are there for another service.  There is also a new fee code to compensate participating physicians for providing vaccinations in their office.

The Ministry of Health and the Saskatchewan Health Authority (SHA) will be working with interested physicians to provide vaccine in the coming weeks.

Halloween Guidance

To keep trick-or-treaters safe this year, remember young children have not yet been vaccinated.  If you are not feeling well, do not hand out candy.  If you are handing out candy, stick to individually wrapped, store-bought treats.

Other tips for trick-or-treaters:

• Stay home if you are sick
• Trick-or-treat with others from inside your household or a small group of contacts
• Outdoors is better than indoors but continue to wear a mask
• Wash your hands often and before eating any treats

It continues to be public health’s recommendation that you only gather with vaccinated people and to keep your overall contacts low.  The current public health order requiring masking and proof of vaccination or negative testing in public places is currently in place and are required at events and venues who will be hosting Halloween events.

Public Health Orders Will Be Enforced

Public health orders are lawful requirements made under legislative and regulatory authority.  If public masking or proof of vaccination or negative test requirements are applicable to a business or venue, and it is a business’s intention to permit access to their facility without proof of either vaccination or testing, the business will be in violation of the public health order and could be subject to a summary offence ticket.

The week of October 17, SHA public health inspectors issued three fines in Lloydminster: two individual fines of $2,800 for failure to mask and one summary offense ticket to Manhattan Inn Ltd. of $14,000 for failure to screen for proof of vaccination or negative test.  Also the week of October 17, an individual fine of $2,800 was issued to a resident of Vawn, Saskatchewan for failure to screen for proof of vaccination or negative test.

Note that under the Health Information and Privacy Act, the Ministry of Health cannot disclose the names of individuals who have received fines.

Receiving a booster dose?  Update your QR code.

Booster dose information will be included in your MySaskHealthRecord vaccine certificate; however, if you generated your COVID-19 vaccination record QR code following your second dose of vaccine, you will be required to regenerate a new QR code after your booster dose if you wish it to show you have received the booster.

Once generated, QR codes are static and need to be updated when your vaccination status changes.  You can access your MySaskHealthRecord account and generate a new QR code after receiving any COVID-19 vaccine, to ensure your record is up-to-date.

Please note that booster shots do not impact Saskatchewan’s definition of fully vaccinated.  You are considered fully-vaccinated 14 days after receiving the second of two doses of an mRNA (Pfizer, Moderna) or AstraZeneca/COVISHIELD vaccine or one dose of Janssen (Johnson & Johnson) vaccine.

COVID-19 Summary for October 26, 2021: 

• From October 20 – 26, 22,070 doses of COVID-19 vaccine have been given in Saskatchewan, bringing the total number of vaccines administered in the province to 1,649,640.
• As of October 26, 85 per cent of those 12+ have received their first dose and 77 per cent of those 12+ are fully vaccinated.
• There were 1,666 new cases of COVID-19 to report in Saskatchewan from October 20 – 26, bringing the provincial total to 76,607 cases. There were 2,529 recoveries recorded during the same period.
• The seven-day average of new COVID-19 cases in Saskatchewan is currently 238 (19.8 per 100,000).
• Thirty-five new deaths were reported October 20 – 26.
• There were 472 new lineage results reported for October 20 – 26.
• As of October 26, there are 286 people in hospital: 217 are receiving inpatient care and 69 are in intensive care.  Two hundred and seven of the people in hospital (72 per cent) are not fully vaccinated.  In addition, 12 ICU patients have been transferred out of province.
• From October 20 – 26, there were 17,164 COVID-19 tests processed in Saskatchewan.

Daily provincial COVID-19 statistics by age, date and geographic zones including active cases, recoveries, confirmed variants of concern and vaccination information can be found at www.saskatchewan.ca/covid19-cases.

Highlights

Cases infected with a variant of concern (VoC), as of October 26, 2021

As of June 9, 2021, the Ministry of Health updated the designations for reporting variants of concern to Alpha (B.1.1.7), Beta (B.1.351), Gamma (P.1) and Delta (B.1.617.2).

* As of September 13, 2021, the province of Saskatchewan ceased testing for variant type on all new cases using SNP in order to support overall COVID-19 testing. Whole genome sequencing will continue to identify any emerging variants. Note that, as public health investigations proceed, variant of concern case locations may change due as residence locations are confirmed.

COVID-19 new cases and vaccination status, October 26, 2021

COVID-19 Deaths by Age Group, as of October 26, 2021

3rd and 4th Dose Administration – As of October 26, 2021 (updated every Tuesday)