For much of the last two months, the news around COVID-19 had been so positive in Saskatchewan that the provincial government was starting to relax restrictions that had been in place for months. It didn't take long for some of that progress to be undone, however. 

Saskatchewan has gained over 300 active cases of COVID-19 in the past week, with variants of concern being a major cause. Regina has been the source of most of these cases, holding 844 of the province's 1565 total active cases. With that in mind, the next month could be crucial for taking another step forward. 

"The rest of the province is coming down really well," said Chief Medical Health Officer Dr. Saqib Shahab. "We need to stay the course for the rest of the province while our vaccination numbers pick up. Regina, unfortunately, the numbers have been trending up."

On the vaccination front, there has been some good news. There were 2298 doses of COVID-19 vaccine administered in Saskatchewan yesterday, and that actually represented a fairly significant decrease from days prior. According to a release, the province is expecting to take delivery of over 60,000 more doses by the end of the day today.

"Overall it's a very positive picture throughout Saskatchewan," Dr. Shahab said. "But we need to stay the course, not relax beyond what is currently in place, and Regina needs some additional measures to help us come down here as well."

Another positive Dr. Shahab pointed to was the rising number of tests. The increased test numbers were leading to more cases being found, but the test-positivity rate was coming down nicely. And even a positive test can be good news in its own way. 

"The more testing there is, we will see an increase in numbers and that's a good thing," Dr. Shahab said. "If you test positive, you isolate and your close contacts that are identified isolate, and that is one way of bringing numbers down." 

Dr. Shahab added the increase in cases in Regina was single-handedly driving case numbers up province-wide. He also said hospitalizations and ICU needs across the province were on the way down, with Regina being the lone exception.