589 new COVID-19 cases, 4 deaths reported in Sask.

Saskatchewan reported 589 new COVID-19 cases on Thursday, along with four more deaths.

The new deaths include one person in the 19 and under age group, while one was in the 40 to 59 age group and two were in the 60 to 79 age group. The province has reported 955 COVID-19 deaths since the start of the pandemic.

The new cases are located in the Far North West (three), Far North East (one), North West (20), North Central (18), North East (four), Saskatoon (242), Central West (18), Central East (44), Regina (137), South West (24), South Central (20), South East (27) zones. An additional 31 new cases are pending location information.

Of the new cases, 291 are unvaccinated, 294 are fully vaccinated and four are partially vaccinated.

There are now 2,176 cases considered active in Saskatchewan.

The province has identified 1,172 cases of the Omicron variant, including 117 confirmed and 1,055 probable cases that screened positive for the variant and are awaiting confirmation.

As of Thursday, the province’s centres make up the majority of Omicron cases, with 50 confirmed and 345 probable in the Regina zone; and 44 confirmed and 383 probable in the Saskatoon zone.

There are 79 people in hospital related to COVID-19 in Saskatchewan, including 14 in intensive care. Of those patients, 47, or 59.9 per cent, were not fully vaccinated.

The seven-day average of daily new COVID-19 cases was 257, or 21.3 per 100,000 population.

Health care workers have administered 1,798,358 doses of COVID-19 vaccines – up 1,751 from Wednesday. There are 856,332 residents who are fully vaccinated.