The Saskatchewan Health Authority’s local Medical Health Officer is saying the situation is critical at the Lloydminster Hospital, as the delta variant continues to spread in this area.
Dr. Mandiangu Nsungu says they’re trying to manage the pressure at the local hospital, which does not have an ICU. With over 20 patients being treated for COVID, officials indicate that the more critical patients continue to be transferred to Edmonton or Saskatoon.
“The situation is serious. Transmission continues to occur and as you can see, there is already a lot of pressure on the hospital. So we can only anticipate that the situation will continue to deteriorate within the next few weeks.”
Of active cases in the Northwest Region 2, 210 are in Lloydminster, which is over half. There are also 68 in North Battleford, 30 in Meadow Lake and 75 in other communities.
A total look at the North West region 2, which also includes Denzil, Lashburn, Macklin, Maidstone, Marsden, Marshall, Neiburg, Onion Lake, Paynton, Primate, Senlac and Waseca, shows 393 active COVID-19 cases with 33 new cases.
Nsungu notes in this region for the period August 30 to September 19th, the majority of cases in this area is being driven by the Delta strain.
“Most of those cases, I should say the majority are due to the Delta variant, which is the dominant strain for the time being. In our area in the northwest, most cases have been in Lloydminster.”
Nsungu added that Lloydminster has been running constantly at about 55 per cent of all cases in the region over the last few weeks.
Nsungu is encouraging people to get vaccinated, as he says 82 per cent of the new COVID cases were in people not fully immunized.
As of Thursday, September 23rd, sixty-four per cent of the eligible population in the North West region has been fully vaccinated. First doses account for 43,607 people with fully vaccinated at 53,759.
Nsungu says he is quite confident that the implementation of proof of vaccination along with other measures will bring down the COVID case counts.