Government, SHA mixed messaging not helping

If you are a wee bit confused by recent mixed messages you have been getting about the COVID -19 crisis in Saskatchewan, you are not alone.

Mixed signals are suddenly a big problem for the Saskatchewan Party government and — coming just three days before its grand reopening plan that naturally mixes badly with its foremost COVID-19 message to stay at home and keep away from others — the timing couldn’t be much worse.

By way of information, by “reopening,” Premier Scott Moe does not mean the Saskatchewan legislature that somehow cannot even resume in even a virtual, online way.

We can somehow figure out a way to golf safely — right up to orders not to putt so as to avoid human contact with the previous golfer by reaching into the hole — yet we can’t find a way to publicly oversee closed-door cabinet spending orders of $4 billion in tax dollars? This should be especially problematic to the conservative-minded in our province who have rightly cheered federal Conservative Party Leader Andrew Scheer’s demands for reopening of Parliament.

In fairness, reopening the Legislative Assembly is always a government choice and it has had to make a lot of choices of late, most of which do contradict something. Mixed messages are an inevitability.

Since it dawned on Moe and company seven weeks ago that COVID-19 was more than some trifling matter getting in the way of an early spring election call, the Sask. Party government has generally gotten it right by following the lead of chief medical health officer Dr. Saqib Shahab and the professionals at the Saskatchewan Health Authority (SHA).

That said, at this critical reopening juncture, the right leadership and messaging is needed more than ever. It’s a very bad time to send out incomplete, inconsistent and often contradictory messages.

While it might be a tad unfair to blame anyone in particular over the handling of the most complex set of circumstances imaginable, there’s clearly been a messaging breakdown between the government and the SHA.

This was first apparent last week in the government frustrations over the SHA not providing specific information on the La Loche/clearwater Dene First Nation outbreak now accounting for (as of Wednesday) a third of Saskatchewan’s COVID -19 deaths (two out of six) and 57 per cent (49 out of 86) of all active cases.

Credit both the government and SHA for a solid response that now includes intense community testing, but the initial communication was abysmal.

So was Wednesday’s handling of an outbreak of 13 cases in Lloydminster, a situation that was happening at least three days earlier but was not disclosed (not even to Moe) because, according to SHA north region medical health officer Dr. Mandiangu Nsungu, such announcements have to be timed appropriately “so you do not panic the population overly.”

We’ve shut down schools and businesses and have been told we endanger others if we don’t keep six feet away. Tuesday, the SHA released its latest modelling numbers that — after seven weeks of isolation — suggest Saskatchewan still potentially faces a “what-if” worst case of 254,756 COVID-19 cases and 3,050 deaths if we abandon social distancing measures.

Panic? We’ve proven to be tough in Saskatchewan, or at least we’ve shown we aren’t easily stampeded. We aren’t little kids.

Yes, it’s the SHA’S job to prepare for the worst, but its messaging at this point needs to be to the public’s benefit and not just the SHA’S own interest of suggesting how bad the pandemic would be if the SHA didn’t have a handle on it. People will follow, but only if the information they are getting is immediate, forthright and of value to them.

It isn’t solely an SHA problem. Moe on Wednesday was advising against any unnecessary interprovincial travel, especially in light of the Alberta-sourced outbreaks in La Loche and Lloydminster, yet he won’t/can’t do anything more about Albertans coming to Saskatchewan to fish, golf or open up their cottages? Again, let’s avoid the mixed signalling.

We can prepare for the worst. We can simultaneously begin reopening. But we need firm and forthright messaging.