Easing of restrictions may be tied to vaccinations: Moe
Premier Scott Moe has been teasing a new plan to pare back public health restrictions in Saskatchewan, hinting it's likely to use the pace of vaccinations as the primary guidepost for a gradual return to normal.
Moe previewed the plan, in vague terms, to legislative reporters twice this week.
On Wednesday, he said he wants to provide more certainty about what life will look like in May, when vaccines should become available to all adults in Saskatchewan, and in June, when more second doses are expected to begin. He said such a conversation will be coming “in the days, or the next week or two, ahead.”
The premier added more detail on Friday, though he declined to reveal precise dates for when the plan is coming, or the specific timeline it will lay out.
“What I'm hearing from people is they want a roadmap on what happens when we get enough people vaccinated,” said Moe. “What happens as we continue to follow the health measures that are in place and when is that going to happen? So I think it's fair to start to have that conversation about what that might look like in the future and that's a conversation that this government is going to be having.”
Saskatchewan unveiled an initial reopening plan in April 2020, charting a step-by-step process to reopen the economy after the early wave of COVID -19 cases subsided. But the province restored restrictions as cases shot back up in the fall and winter.
The most recent move came this Tuesday, when the government again limited private gatherings to immediate households only across the province.
Moe said the new plan will be built around what other countries, further ahead in their vaccine efforts, are doing to reopen. But he strongly suggested vaccinations will be the main factor in determining how fast Saskatchewan returns to normal.
He said case rates, hospital admissions and other metrics will be largely determined by the speed of the rollout.
“What we're seeing in other jurisdictions is vaccination levels are driving a number of the other metrics,” said Moe. “So that is the first metric that is really going to change things in this province.”
NDP Leader Ryan Meili argued that the premier's approach sounds too narrow. He said any reopening plan should pay close attention to workplace transmission rates for COVID -19, as well as hospital pressures and the spread of variants in Saskatchewan.
“The best measure is not how many vaccines are in people's arms,” said Meili. “That's a tool to get to the best measure which is as little COVID being transmitted as possible as few people sick as possible, as few people dying as possible. That's the human metrics and really the only thing that matters.”
ONTARIO'S PLEA FOR HEALTH WORKERS DENIED
Moe poured cold water on a request from Ontario, which is asking other provinces to send health workers to deal with crushing pressures in its intensive care units.
Moe said Saskatchewan's Health Ministry received the request and will respond. But he said it's unlikely to happen.
“We just don't have the capacity to start even talking about loaning our health-care workers out for a period of time to other provinces,” said Moe. “They're quite busy, rightfully so, putting the priorities of Saskatchewan residents first and foremost.”
The Saskatchewan Health Authority's chief medical officer, Dr. Susan Shaw, was also hesitant to support Ontario's plea, which was also addressed to Alberta.
“Sadly Alberta has no HCWS to spare,” she posted on Twitter, using the acronym for health care workers. “Nor does Saskatchewan.”
On Friday, the Canadian Medical Association recommended a pan-canadian effort to deploy resources where they're most needed. It called for the federal government to think about “re-prioritization” of its vaccine shipments so they go to where the need is most urgent. Currently, the vaccines are divvied up on the basis of population.
But Moe doesn't want to see vaccines earmarked for Saskatchewan under per capita allocations go elsewhere.
“We are not at a point of time where we would be ready to have conversations about loaning Saskatchewan's allocation of vaccines out,” said the premier. “We want those vaccines here so that we can deliver the Saskatchewan people as quickly as possible.”
Saskatchewan, which had the highest per capita case rates in the country for much of the winter, is now posting better daily COVID-19 case statistics than Ontario and Alberta, according to the seven-day average. Ontario's modelling has shown cases there could approach 20,000 per day if new measures weren't imposed, which they were late Friday.
Meili agreed that Saskatchewan has no vaccines to spare. He said the pressures here are also serious, particularly in intensive care units.