The province says masks are going to be needed when you are in indoor public spaces in Regina, Saskatoon and Prince Albert.

This will be in effect, starting Friday morning at 12:01 a.m, for 28 days as of which time it will be reviewed by Chief Medical Health Officer Dr. Saqib Shahab.

“Using a mask is an important additional layer of protection and it will help control the spread of COVID-19 in our communities,” stated Premier Scott Moe during Saskatchewan’s COVID-19 update on Tuesday.

At the same time, indoor private gatherings such as in homes are being reduced from 15 people to 10. The government says this includes events that occur in private dwellings and outbuildings such as weddings, religious gatherings and funerals.

Shahab is optimistic residents can help lower COVID-19 case numbers, but that will mean everyone needs to put in an effort.

“While we need to be prepared to see higher case numbers in the fall, we need to do everything we can to try and stabilize this trend,” explained Shahab. “Even if we start taking all the actions today, we may see our numbers high for a bit, but then hopefully we can start bending the curve downwards.”

Shahab is also encouraging people to return to safe outings such as having one person in your household run errands and limiting those errands to once per week.

“Shopping shouldn’t be a social event where you are meeting people in the aisle, for example. We just need to streamline and try to get some of the crowding down.”

The news comes after another day where there is a high case count in Saskatchewan as 81 new cases were announced. However, the active case count has dropped as there were 97 recoveries meaning 842 cases are now active.

The new cases are located in the Far North West (1), Far North East (1), North West (14), North Central (16), North East (3), Saskatoon (29), Central East (6) and Regina (10) zones.

One case reported today has pending residence locations. Nine cases with pending residence locations on November 2 have been assigned to the North West (3), North Central (4), North East (1) and Regina (1) zones.

28  people are in hospital.  21 are receiving inpatient care; two in the North West, five in the North Central, eight in the Saskatoon and six in the Regina zone. Seven people are in intensive care; two in North Central, four in Saskatoon and one in Regina.

Overall in Saskatchewan:

• 686 cases involve people 19 years of age and under, while the remainder are adults.
• 1,227 cases are in the 20-39 age range; 954 are in the 40-59 age range; 422 are in the 60-79 age range; and 84 are in the 80-plus range.
• 50 per cent of the cases are females and 50 per cent are males.

1,931 tests were done in Saskatchewan on Monday bringing the provincial total to 270.097.

(With files from Moises Canales)