We cannot pretend that COVID is over
Enjoy a great Saskatchewan summer, by all means. Travel, meet with friends and engage in all the activities you missed over the past two years.
Just don't pretend this summer marks the first so-called post-pandemic season. That would show tremendous disrespect for those who are still becoming sick and dying of
COVID -19 in the province.
The first four months of this year marked the deadliest such stretch of the pandemic, with 369 deaths — nearly a third of the 1,324 total deaths reported. That includes the 14 deaths announced last week, most of which ended the lives of people under the age of 80.
The previous high of 352 deaths was recorded from September to December of last year. December 2020 to March 2021 marks the third deadliest stretch, with the loss of 338 lives.
Yet the Omicron variant that fuelled the explosion in infections this year was supposed to be mild. If the death rate continues this year — and let's all hope it doesn't — the number of COVID -19 deaths in 2022 (1,107) would exceed the number of deaths in 2020 and 2021 combined (955).
More than half of those who have died of COVID-19 in Saskatchewan, about 54 per cent, were under the age of 80 — a contrast to a national death toll, which is dominated by people 80 and older.
As awful as the mounting, mostly preventable deaths are, we know excess death research will likely uncover a far greater toll. Last week, the World Health Organization released a study that showed global deaths were likely three times higher than the five million officially reported.
Saskatchewan's COVID -19 death rate of
112 per 100,000 people ranks well above the national rate of 104 and trails only Manitoba and Quebec, which identify far more pandemic deaths through post-mortem testing.
Our death rate remains so high in part because our vaccination rates remain so low compared to the rest of Canada. Saskatchewan trails most national vaccination rates, regardless of defining factors, by about five per cent. The Land of Living Skies continues to rank near the bottom for vaccination, above only Alberta.
Last month, the province began sharing the degree to which vaccination can prevent hospitalization and death. From Feb. 13 to April 16, the rate of COVID-19 hospitalization in Saskatchewan for the unvaccinated was twice as high as for those who were fully vaccinated, and five times that of those with three vaccine doses.
The death rate for the unvaccinated was quadruple that of fully vaccinated people and seven times that of people with three doses.
Those odds could hardly be more clear, yet only 54 per cent of those who got fully vaccinated have bothered to get a booster.
It seems clear that pandemic fatigue has taken hold and it's costing people their lives.
Meanwhile, suicides in the province remained down in the second year of the pandemic, with 204 classified so far, up slightly from the 199 in 2020, but lower than the 208 in 2019 and the 241 in 2018.
Folks claiming government-imposed “lockdowns” sparked a spike in suicides unsurprisingly lack any evidence to support that assertion. This same crowd seems to think that the pandemic lockdowns happening in China — where people are actually confined to their homes to prevent the spread of COVID-19 — somehow also happened here.
The real evidence is stupefyingly obvious: vaccination helps limit deaths.
Nova Scotia, the closest province to Saskatchewan in population at just above one million, has suffered 366 reported COVID deaths during the entire pandemic, fewer than Saskatchewan in the last four months. Nova Scotia's vaccination rates rank near the top in Canada, about 10 per cent higher than in Saskatchewan.
Depressingly, the most recent wastewater study from Saskatoon shows a surge in infections to the second highest level yet. That likely means more preventable deaths.
You don't need to lock yourself inside to be safe and prevent the spread of a deadly respiratory disease. Surely we've all learned enough to apply the lessons learned over the last two years, without a public health order.