Cases and hospitalizations are down in this week’s COVID-19 report from the province.

There were 710 laboratory-confirmed new cases this week, compared to 765 last week, and 321 hospitalizations this week compared to 390 last week.

There were 19 newly reported COVID deaths this week. Four of the deaths were in people between age 40 and 59, four between the ages of 60 and 69, five between age 70 and 79 and six over age 80.

The province said that compared with last week’s proportion of cases, there were only slight or no changes across all zones. Rates should be taken with caution because they don’t include cases detected by home rapid-antigen test kits.

Of the new cases, 210 were in the Saskatoon region, 123 were in Regina’s region, 71 were in central east, 66 were in southeast, 65 were in the northwest, 42 were in north central, 30 in south central, 18 were in the southwest, 17 in the northeast and 14 were in central east. The far north had 19 new cases and there were 35 had pending residence.

There were 30.3 COVID-like illness patients per 1,000 emergency department visits which was lower than the average weekly rate of 38.4 in the previous six weeks.  Among people 18 years and older, 52.2 per cent had received at least one booster vaccination.