For a third straight day, Saskatchewan had more than one thousand new cases of COVID-19, all now assumed by the provincial government to be of the Omicron variant.

The latest dashboard readings showed a 1,027 new cases, along with 661 recoveries and a fifth consecutive day without a new novel coronavirus-related death, leaving 8,229 active cases in Saskatchewan.

Of the active cases, 121 people are in hospital, including 11 infections in an I-C-U. The hospitalized number is up two from Monday.

Highlights

Public Health Orders Will Be Enforced

For the weeks of December 27 and January 3, the provincial COVID enforcement team issued a number of summary office tickets for failure to abide by the current public health orders:

• SKBuilt Gym, Regina received a fine for $2,800 for failure to mask and a $14,000 fine for failure to check for proof of vaccination or a negative test
• Whole Leaf Healing Tree, Regina received a fine for $2,800 for failure to mask
• Kingdom Sound Academy, Swift Current received a fine for $2,800 for failure to mask
• Sweet Treats Candy Company, Moose Jaw received a fine for $2,800 for failure to mask

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

COVID-19 Summary for January 11, 2022:

• From January 5 – January 11, 14,967 first and second doses of COVID-19 vaccine have been given in Saskatchewan, bringing the total number of primary series vaccines administered in the province to 1,818,581.
• An additional 52,730 third and fourth doses have been administered in the province from January 5 – January 11, bringing the total number of vaccines including boosters administered in the province to 2,193,645.  Thirty-nine per cent of eligible residents age 18+ have now received their booster dose.
• As of January 11, 88 per cent of residents 12 years and older and 84 per cent of residents five years older have received their first dose.  Eighty-four per cent of residents 12 years and older and 77 per cent of residents five years and older are fully vaccinated.
• There were 6,861 new cases of COVID-19 to report in Saskatchewan from January 5 – January 11, bringing the provincial total to 94,080 cases. There were 2,084 recoveries recorded during the same period.
• The seven-day average of new COVID-19 cases in Saskatchewan is currently 980 (81.3/100,000).
• One new death was reported January 5 – January 11.
• There were 1,544 new lineage results reported for January 5 – January 11.
• As of January 11, 121 individuals are hospitalized including 110 inpatient hospitalizations and 11 ICU hospitalizations. Of the 121 patients, 54 (44.6 per cent) were not fully vaccinated
• Since October 25, 41 monoclonal antibody infusion treatments have been delivered.
• From January 5 – January 11, there were 24,020 COVID-19 tests processed in Saskatchewan.

Cases infected with a variant of concern (VoC), as of January 11, 2022

Note that the Roy Romanow Provincial Laboratory is reporting that 95 per cent of new cases are Omicron cases, based on SNP testing. Based on this percentage, it is assumed that all new COVID-19 cases in the province are Omicron and the RRPL will cease performing SNP testing on new samples. All specimens from international travellers who test positive in Saskatchewan will continue to undergo whole genome sequencing to determine their lineage, as well as randomly selected cases from across the province to continue surveillance of circulating virus.

* 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 Deaths by Age Group, as of January 11, 2022

3rd and 4th Dose Administration – As of January 11, 2022 (updated every Tuesday)