ICYMI: Saskatchewan faces new COVID-19 wave as BA.5 variant spreads
An epidemiological report released by Saskatchewan’s government confirms the province is seeing rising numbers of infections, hospitalizations and deaths, driven largely by a new version of the virus that has rapidly become dominant in the province.
Between June 26 and July 18, 229 Saskatchewan residents with the virus were admitted to hospital, a higher admission rate than the week before. “The headline information here is quite telling,” University of Saskatchewan epidemiologist Dr. Nazeem Muhajarine said. Comparatively, BA.4 and BA.5 collectively only accounted for 1.4 per cent of samples in the week of June 5 to June 11. Those variants have fuelled a rebound in infections across the globe, including in Canada
The province announced this week that it will begin offering fourth doses of COVID-19 vaccines to more of the general population as soon as mid-August in the hopes those shots will blunt the effect on the province’s hospitals. Data compiled by the Ministry of Health says people with a booster are three times less likely to be hospitalized and six times less likely to die of COVID-19 than someone who is unvaccinated, adjusted across age groups.