COVID-19 in Sask: 217 new cases, 3 more deaths, 44 people in ICU

Saskatchewan health officialsarereporting 217 new cases of COVID-19 and three related deaths on the day the provincial government releases its 2021-2022 budget. The number of people under intensive care also remains high at 44.

The majority of the new cases announced Tuesday, 97, were in the Regina area, which is under enhanced COVID-19 public health guidelines due to the spread of COVID-19 variants in the area.

The rest of the new cases were reported in the following areas: far northwest (five), northwest (11), north central (three), northeast (two), Saskatoon (30), central east (17), southwest (one), south central (14), and southeast (36) zones.One new case has pending residence information.Two cases that previously hadpending residence information have been assigned to the Regina zone.

The new cases were based on2,924 tests being processed.

2 of 3 new deaths in Regina area

Three more people who had COVID-19 have died: one person in their 60s in the North Central area and two people from the Regina area, including one person in their 70s and another aged 80 or over.

As of Monday, there had been 2,677 cases of variants of concern identified by screening in Saskatchewan. They were detected in the following areas: far northwest (one), far northeast (four) northwest (four), north central (18), Saskatoon (163), central west (12), central east (52), Regina (1,898), southwest (11), south central (232) and southeast (214). There are 68 cases with area of residence pending.

The province also reported 221 recoveries, bringing the total in the province so far to 32,342.

The number of variants detected in the Saskatoon area has risen sharply in recent days, from 72 on the Friday before Easter weekend to 163 on Tuesday. The Regina, south central and southeast areas also saw their variant numbers rise over those five days.

There are 202 people in hospital due to COVID-19, including 44 people under intensive care one of the highest amounts of Saskatchewan COVID-19 ICU patients since the pandemic arrived in March 2020.