VIRUS EMERGENCY DECLARED
Province opens purse strings to fight pandemic as cases in Sask. double in one day to 16
REGINA Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe declared a state of emergency on Wednesday, as the province announced eight new cases of COVID -19, bringing the province’s total to 16.
A state of emergency grants the provincial government extra powers to keep the pandemic from spreading.
“We think it needs to be available to act very quickly in what is an increasingly volatile situation,” said Moe, who doesn’t know the last time Saskatchewan enacted a provincewide state of emergency.
“You could use it, for example, to set the price of certain items. You could use it, for example, to set the volumes of purchases that could be available for certain items to an individual. … You could use it to isolate a portion of a building, a community or an entire town, village or city anywhere in the province.”
The goal is to stop COVID-19 from spreading rapidly, so as not to overburden the health-care system.
“The order is put forward; it has a 14-day lifespan. And at that point in time if it needs to be renewed it will be,” said Moe.
Gyms, fitness centres, casinos and bingo halls are being ordered to close until further notice.
Restaurants, bars and event venues must limit seating to half capacity or a maximum of 50 people, so patrons can have one to two metres distance from each another.
Public gatherings larger than 50 people are prohibited — although, chief medical health officer Dr. Saqib Shahab said his personal level of comfort is groups of four or five people, maximum.
“If I go into a meeting room and people aren’t sitting one metre apart, I refuse to attend that meeting,” he said.
“And I don’t want to go to a gathering with more than four or five people actually; that’s my comfort level right now.
“Fifty is like a speed limit; just because it’s 50 doesn’t mean that everyone needs to invite 49 people to their house. I think you need to minimize contact as much as humanly possible.”
Residents are being advised to not travel outside of the province, unless you live in a border community and need to commute for work.
All non-urgent or elective surgeries, procedures and diagnostics are being postponed as of March 23.
The Saskatchewan Health Authority
has limited visitation at all SHA facilities in the province. Visitors are allowed for compassionate reasons — including patients’ endof-life care and major surgeries — so long as the visitors don’t have respiratory or flu-like symptoms or have travelled outside the province in the past 14 days.
All Crown utilities will have a zero-interest deferral of bill payment for up to six months. All government ministries, agencies and Crowns will have a work-fromhome policy for employees, effective March 23.
Licensed restaurants and taverns are permitted to sell alcohol as an off-sale, indefinitely, per SLGA regulations.
NDP Leader Ryan Meili welcomed the state of emergency, but said it should have come sooner and its measures are “inadequate.”
“There was no clarity on what’s happening with non-essential businesses, when we do need a clear message of when those will close.
“Nothing on daycares and when those will close. Still no information on non-essential dental … services, which is clearly a highrisk thing to be happening at this point,” said Meili.
He added, the government needs to announce COVID -19-related financial assistance measures.
The 16 COVID-19 cases in the province so far can all be traced back to specific travel, said Shahab. There is no evidence of community transmission at this point, but in one new case, the patient did not travel — they caught the illness from sharing a household with someone who had travelled and contracted COVID-19.
Shahab and Moe urged people to continue practising social distancing and to self-isolate if they have symptoms of illness.
Moe urged people to not hoard goods: “COVID-19 will not cause shortages in our grocery stores, but hoarding will, so don’t do it.”
He urged people to stay home,
especially if they’ve just come back from a trip.
“We need to self-isolate. And I know you may say that you’re feeling just fine, but you might be endangering the health and the lives of others, your neighbour possibly, or even an elderly family member,” said Moe.
Shahab said it’s all of our responsibilities to stop the spread: People coming home from trips even within Canada should self-isolate; their friends must not invite them out and should instead offer to run errands so they don’t have to leave their home.
He said 30 to 70 per cent of us will get COVID-19; 80 per cent of cases will be mild, and 20 per cent will require some level of hospital care, including two per cent in intensive
care.
“But as long as all those pressures come slowly over eight to 12 months, the health system still needs to expand the surge capacity, maybe by 50 per cent. But it can manage,” said Shahab.
“If we don’t do social distancing, no health system in the world can manage.”
“What we have seen from countries in Southeast Asia that did everything right, is that eight weeks, 12 weeks out, … they can relax on some things, but not other things. Cautiously. So they may not open schools right away, they may not allow large events, but they can ease up on some of that, like restaurants and those kind of things,” said Shahab.
“I think right now we need to
sustain the next eight weeks at least and then re-evaluate,” he continued.
Visit www.saskatchewan.ca/ COVID19 to find necessary information on travel guidance, preventive measures and information for care providers.
The site has a self-assessment tool to determine if you should contact Healthline 811.
You can also email COVID19@ health.gov.sk.ca.
Shahab said if you have symptoms of fever or a cough, you should call ahead to your doctor’s office so you aren’t possibly transmitting the illness to others in the waiting room.
Some physicians are doing virtual or telephone care, too.