Province committed to Re-open Saskatchewan strategy
Despite recording the province’s highest single day COVID-19 total, Saskatchewan officials did not flinch in their efforts to pursue their Re-open Saskatchewan efforts which began on Monday.
On May 1, Saskatchewan recorded 26 confirmed cases of COVID-19, with 19 of those cases occurring in the Far North. By comparison, since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, South Saskatchewan (which includes Swift Current, Moose Jaw, and Weyburn and all surrounding communities), recorded only 15 positive cases.
However, Saskatchewan’s Chief Medical Health Officer Dr. Saqib Shahab said during a press conference on Friday that Saskatchewan will not be delaying re-opening efforts as a result of the clustered outbreaks.
“I’d like to again emphasize that for the vast majority of Saskatchewan that is not seeing clusters or outbreaks, the re-open plan will move ahead. But it is not going back to business as usual. It is going forwards in a new normal. There are clear cut criteria that are posted on-line and have been updated today,” Dr. Shahab said.
The updated strategy includes additional information for retail stores, specific guidelines for greenhouse operators, along with information about parks, campgrounds and fishing access.
“Similar to the businesses that are working very successfully, like grocery stores and other essential workplaces, new businesses and settings as they will reopen in the following weeks, they have to follow those criteria and they have to think through before reopening how they would do that and learn from the successful experience of other essential workplaces,” Dr.
Shahab explained.
“And that is critical. Even if you have no case in your part of the province, that is critical to keep it that way. Because as we have seen from places there are clusters, COVID can comeback and spread extremely rapidly if you don’t adhere to those guidances.”
“So the positive thing is that we are able to proceed with re-opening because things remain quite flat, in terms of the curve in most of Saskatchewan. But I think we need to obviously pause that in settings that there are outbreaks.”
He said the province is prepare to investigate
COVID-19 outbreak clusters, and is initiating increased testing and contract tracing when communities are impacted with outbreaks. However, if the outbreaks are localized to an institutional setting, while that is clearly concerning, businesses in those communities would continue to re-open because COVID is not in the community.
“If it’s a community outbreak, there may in future be a need to pause anywhere in the province when there’s an outbreak until such time that that is controlled. So that will have to be the new normal for the next little while.”
Dr. Shahab also said working in a world with COVID-19 is a new reality.
“We have to be very realistic about COVID-19. That our best estimate and modelling and evidence shows that this will continue, unless there’s a vaccine or there’s therapeutics, this will continue for the next several months. And there may well be, as some people are predicting, that the cough and cold season it will spike again in the fall or winter.
“So when things are quiet, the curve is flat, it’s not responsible to not re-open activity because that is essential as well, in terms of you can’t pause things indefinitely either.”