Sask. reports 33 COVID-19 deaths, more Omicron BA.2 cases

In the past week, 14 people have died from COVID-19 in Saskatchewan, according to the province's weekly release of pandemic data, which details statistics from March 13 to 19.

Another 19 deaths were newly reported by the province, however, the remaining deaths were from Jan. 25 to March 12 and are just being reported now.

Of the 33 newly reported deaths, 67 per cent were people aged 80 or older.One person was aged 20 to 39.

There have been a total of 1,211 COVID-related deaths since the beginning of the pandemic, according to the report.

The province also reported 306 total people in hospital on Wednesday, six more than the reporting period that ended on Mar. 16.

On Wednesday, there were 19 people in the adult intensive care unit that tested positive for COVID-19.

As of Saturday, the province found 29.7in every 1,000 visits to the emergency department were for COVID-19 related illness. This is higher than last week's report of 27.1, but lower than the weekly average (38.1 per week per 1,000 visits) according to the report.

Since the vaccine became available to children aged five to 11 in November 2021, about 56 per cent of Saskatchewan children in that range have had one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine. About two in five (39 per cent) have received two doses.

Beyond that, as of Saturday, nearly 86 per cent of people aged five and older hadreceived one shot of a two-dose vaccine and 80.5 per cent hadcompleted a series.

The Omicron BA.2 subvariant accounted for more than one-quarter of all variants of concerns found this week (25.9 per cent), up from the previous reporting week (5.4 per cent).

HoweverPCR testing, which can screen for variants of concern, is limited in the province.

The subvariant is expected to be more transmissible than the dominant Omicron subvariant, BA.1.