A total of 34 new cases of COVID-19 were reported in Saskatchewan Tuesday, and the province has announced they are lowering gathering sizes in private residences.

With a rise in new cases linked to private social gatherings, Saskatchewan's Chief Medical Health Officer Dr. Saqib Shahab is lowering the maximum allowable gathering size to 15 as of midnight Thursday.

“Even with increasing community transmission rates we still have the power to effect change, to flatten that curve, but it means all residents have to do their part to help keep their friends and family safe,” Shahab said in Tuesday's media release. 

Shahab is strongly recommending masks be worn in all indoor public locations where two metres of physical distancing is not possible or predictable. Stay home if sick, the province said. 

The new cases are located in the North Central (9), Saskatoon (8), Central West (4), and Regina (11) zones. Two cases have locations pending.

Nine people are in hospital.  Seven people are receiving inpatient care; four in Saskatoon, one in Regina, one in North Central and one in Central East.  One person is in intensive care in Regina and one person is in intensive care in Saskatoon.

Eleven of the new cases are in Regina.

Of the 2,174 cases in the province to date:

317 cases are travellers;1,066 are community contacts (including mass gatherings);613 have no known exposures; and178 are under investigation by local public health.

Overall in Saskatchewan to date:

78 cases are healthcare workers; however, the source of the infections may not be related to healthcare in all instances.373 cases involve people 19 years of age and under, while the remainder are adults.726 cases are in the 20-39 age range; 658 are in the 40-59 age range; 347 are in the 60-79 age range; and 70 are in the 80-plus range.51 per cent of the cases are females and 49 per cent are males.25 deaths related to COVID-19 have been reported to date.

There are:465 cases are from the south area (226 south west, 207 south central, 32 south east)450 cases are from the Saskatoon area375 cases are from the far north area (356 far north west, 0 far north central, 19 far north east)388 cases are from the north area (140 north west, 127 north central, 71 north east)314 cases are from the central area (187 central west, 127 central east)230 cases are from the Regina area

To date, 218,959 COVID-19 tests have been performed in Saskatchewan. As of October 11, 2020 when other provincial and national numbers are available from Public Health Agency of Canada, Saskatchewan’s per capita rate was 151,482 people tested per million population.  The national rate was 217,924 people tested per million population.

Yesterday, 2037 COVID-19 tests were performed in Saskatchewan.

Note Correction: an incorrect number of total tests was reported in Monday’s COVID-19 case news releases. There were 684 tests that were doubled counted, therefore the correct total number of tests performed on Oct. 11th was 2,553.