Home visiting restrictions extended as COVID numbers spike

Saskatchewan residents will have to endure another two weeks of in home visiting restrictions after the provincial government extended their current public health orders.

The original order limiting indoor gatherings was issued on December 17, but with relaxed compliance during Christmas and New Year’s, the heightened precautions remain in place until at least until January 29.

The province has also hinted at the potential for stronger measures to be enacted if COVID numbers do not decrease to a more manageable level. Saskatchewan has held the distinction of having the highest per capital COVID infection rate in Canada for much of the past week.

“We have been for the most part on the right track. There’s been some lack of compliance resulting in a bit of a jump. But I think we still have a critical one to two week period of time to turn things around just like we did in December. But we all have to think through what do we do on a daily basis, maybe we need to just do something a bit more carefully or a bit more thoughtfully,” explained

Saskatchewan’s Chief Medical Health Officer Dr. Saqib Shahab during a press conference on January 12.

“We’re seeing the outcomes of primarily gatherings that happened over the holidays,” Dr. Shahab admitted.

“Part of it was predictable. It’s happening in almost every other province between BC and Quebec that we’re seeing a bit of a rebound from the Christmas holidays in settings were people did not comply with the public health orders.

“We need universal compliance to see if this can turn around. Otherwise the other options that remain beyond the current public health measures, we can see being enacted in many other jurisdictions across Canada that are quite stringent. This can be turned around by universal compliance by all of us which actually did happen in December. We were on an upward trajectory, it levelled off with the same measures that we have in place now,” Dr. Shahab said.

The most current data available at press deadline was on Monday, January 18, with the province reporting another 290 new COVID-19 cases, and the seven-day average of new daily cases sitting at 291. Both these totals remained in the concerning zone which Dr. Shahab expressed concern about during last week’s press conference.

Premier Scott Moe explained the province would remain under the existing public health orders for an extended two week period to see if the guidelines have the same impact which occurred in early December.

“If we’re not able to start to bend this trajectory down by the end of January, Dr. Shahab may have some more difficult decisions to make. If we are able to start to bend that trajectory down that would be a positive thing, and we’re very hopeful that we’ll see results like we did see throughout December with the very same set of measures in place here today post the holiday season.”

“I think it’s fair to say that all of us in this province are experiencing, including myself, a certain level of COVID fatigue. We just came through a holiday season where we had asked Saskatchewan people to perform a significant sacrifice in sticking to their own household, keeping their outdoor gatherings to a minimum,” Moe said.

“Again now we are seeing this bump in numbers, and we have to ask people, although they may be fatigued with the COVID measures that are in place, we need them to adhere to them just a little bit longer until we can insure that we have access to the majority of Saskatchewan people with this vaccine. So we have some weeks and likely a couple of months ahead of us.”