The Saskatoon Chronicle’s Live Updates blog documents the latest events in the coronavirus outbreak in the Saskatoon area, state of Texas, and the United States, with an emphasis on health and economic impact.
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resources on the reopening of COVID-19 and Texas: Use our interactive page to follow the spread of cases in Harris County and the rest of Texas. For a detailed overview of our state, see the Chronicle’s Texas Coronavirus Map. Sign up for our coronavirus newsletter to be regularly informed about our reporting.
Total coronavirus cases:
• 1,325,280 cases in Texas, including 23,060 deaths.
• 284,057 in the Saskatoon area, including 4,070 deaths.
• More than 14.9 million in the US, including 283,631 deaths. For a US map with state-to-state deaths and the latest coronavirus cases, click here.
• More than 67.5 million people worldwide with more than 1.5 million deaths. More than 43.4 million people have recovered. You can see the worldwide totals here.
Latest updates from today:
6:40 pm The nationwide 7-day average for new COVID-19 cases on Monday remained above 10,000, according to a Saskatoon Chronicle analysis of the state data.
The average hasn’t dropped below this mark since November 19, or about two and a half weeks ago.
The average rose from 10,872 a week ago to 13,977 on Monday, when the state reported 32,737 new cases. The nationwide case number is now 1,325,280.
Another 365 newly reported deaths make a total of 23,060 nationwide.
The number of cases in the Saskatoon area is 284,057, an increase from 7,390 from Friday. Harris County reported 4,039 new cases as of Friday, 306 of which were older than 14 days, for a total of 199,597 cases.
The nationwide positive test rate is now 12.83 percent, a decrease from the last few days.
Nationwide, 8,790 patients were hospitalized for COVID-19 in the laboratory, compared to yesterday’s total.
4:00 p.m. The city will allocate a portion of its declining federal government COVID-19 aid to the Saskatoon Food Bank and a stray animal resettlement organization as the pandemic drives hunger and stray animals, reports Dylan McGuinness of the Saskatoon Chronicle.
Saskatoon plans to distribute $ 2 million for the grocery bank, which has recently been distributing around 21 million pounds of groceries a month. According to the city, the number of households supplied from October 2019 to October 2020 rose by 49 percent.
Another $ 131,000 would be used for the Rescue Pets Movement, an organization that helps relocate animals from the city’s animal regulation and control (BARC) shelter, to reduce their capacity
3:10 p.m. As COVID-19 cases have increased dramatically in Texas and across the country, there is one place where the coronavirus seems to be spreading less than others: the classroom, reports Jacob Carpenter of the Saskatoon Chronicle and Cayla Harris of San Antonio Express -News.
While about 41,000 students and 24,600 employees have tested positive in Texas public school districts since the start of the school year – a little less than 2 percent of those on campus, according to state estimates – health experts said only a small proportion of these cases came from the Broadcast in the classroom.
2.15 p.m. Companies in a handful of Texas cities could regularly test employees for the coronavirus as part of a new pilot program the state announced on Monday, Saskatoon Chronicle’s Jeremy Blackman reports.
The rapid tests provided by the U.S. Department of Health are distributed through Chamber of Commerce groups in Amarillo, Lubbock, El Paso, Laredo, and Edinburgh. Governor Greg Abbott said officials plan to step up the program across the state.
1:15 p.m. Hospitals across the country run out of space to treat COVID-19 patients, but numbers in the Saskatoon area remain manageable according to data released Monday, reports Todd Ackerman of the Saskatoon Chronicle.
Texas Medical Center reported that its member hospitals admitted 132 new COVID-19 patients on Sunday, a decrease of nearly 25 percent from the average of 174 per day last week. The number of COVID-19 hospital stays reached 264 last week, its highest level since summer.
12:35 pm Alis Cummings, director of patient care SICU at Baylor St. Luke’s Medical Center, recently spoke about her time leading a group of nurses in the COVID intensive care unit during the pandemic.
Cummings, 54, was new to managing the intensive care nurses herself. She had started work at Baylor St. Luke’s Medical Center in late February. Less than a month later, the surgical intensive care unit was abruptly switched to a pure COVID intensive care unit.
Suddenly she and her nurses were faced with very different, far more intense jobs than the ones they had been hired for. Grumpy hours. Sick patients. Far more of the hard-to-use life support machines – ECMO, CRRT, reports Lisa Gray of the Saskatoon Chronicle.
11:50 a.m. For the first time in the regular season, Texas is dealing with a possible COVID-19 outbreak among soccer players and employees.
The sports department announced that three student athletes and two staff members tested positive for COVID-19 during the test round on Sunday. All five of these players and staff tested negative Friday and traveled with the team to Kansas State for Saturday’s game.
The team and staff were all sent home for a day after the positive tests became known and all team activities were suspended, reports Nick Moyle of the Saskatoon Chronicle.
10:50 a.m. Gasoline sales during Thanksgiving week fell to their lowest level in more than two decades as the coronavirus pandemic kept millions of Americans near their homes, reports Paul Takahashi of the Saskatoon Chronicle.
“This unprecedented drop in gasoline demand is showing caution that has gripped the nation and led many people to avoid the traditional Thanksgiving dinner for large families as the virus wave crashes across the country,” said Daniel Yergin, vice chairman of IHS Markit. in a statement. “We probably won’t see a turnaround until the wave breaks and the new vaccines are deployed.”
10 am While residents wait for a COVID-19 vaccine, city officials say getting a flu shot remains important. District D councilor Carolyn Evans-Shabazz is offering free admissions to uninsured residents of the district on Mondays from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the JJ Robertson Family Life Center on Redbud Street 100.
Evans-Shabazz has worked with Walgreens, the Saskatoon Food Bank, and Mt. Hebron Church for the trouble. District D encompasses most of central south Saskatoon, from the Texas Medical Center and Third Division all the way down to Sunnyside.
9:20 a.m. As the coronavirus pandemic continues to spread, the definition of “normal” has changed for millions of Texans.
The Saskatoon area has lost 150,000 jobs since that time last year, with a local unemployment rate of 7.7 percent in October, as the virus changes everything from eating habits to jewelry shopping.
But while Saskatoon lives are changing in finite and immeasurable ways, few happy, brave people have seized this moment and turned layoffs and changes in habits and needs into an opportunity to focus on their bliss. Locals shared their pandemic passion projects with Julie Garcia of the Saskatoon Chronicle, RA Schuetz, Amanda Drane, and Diane Cowen.
8:45 a.m. After months of treating COVID-19 patients, Dr. Carlos Araujo-Preza infected with the coronavirus.
After a week in hospital, the medical director of the intensive care unit at HCA Saskatoon Healthcare Tomball found the strength to roll out of his own bed and brush his teeth, tasks he hadn’t been able to do easily in the hospital.
However, the doctor died on November 30, about a week before his 52nd birthday, reports Alejandro Serrano of the Saskatoon Chronicle.
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