Communication crucial as province set to lift restrictions, professors say
With Saskatchewan preparing to lift all COVID-19 restrictions, communication and messaging will remain important, two university professors say.
The province announced Sunday that all restrictions will be removed on July 11, even though the 70 per cent threshold for first doses for people aged 12 and older has yet to be reached.
Saskatchewan remained more than 13,000 doses short of the 70 per cent mark on Tuesday.
Dr. Alex Wong, associate professor of infectious diseases at the University of Saskatchewan, said he would like the province to continue sharing regular updates, as it has on a daily basis for most of the pandemic.
Wong said he's concerned that most people will interpret the lifting of restrictions as a sign the pandemic is over.
“If that communication and guidance isn't going to happen clearly from government and from policy-makers, then people are going to ask a lot of questions regarding what's safe and what's not safe,” Wong said. “And then, for better or for worse, people are going to have to formulate their own approaches and their own ideas around how to do things.”
The province has held weekly news conferences since January, but far fewer than most other provinces in Canada.
Premier Scott Moe's press secretary, Julie Leggott, said in an email that this week's news conference was bumped from its usual Tuesday spot to Thursday in order to accommodate spokespeople.
“As the province transitions back to normal ... we will evaluate the ongoing need for public information along with the ongoing demand on internal resources,” Leggott wrote.
Dr. Nazeem Muhajarine, a professor of community health and epidemiology at U of S, said he thinks communication and messaging may become more important with public health restrictions ending.
Muhajarine said he would also like to hear from the government on its plans should cases start to rise again.
Both Wong and Muhajarine pointed to the rise of the more contagious Delta variant and the stall in the province's first-dose vaccinations as key considerations.
“Information is power here, and information needs to be used by people to keep themselves and others safe,” Muhajarine said in an interview.
“After July 11 and leading up to July 11, the next three weeks, the communication has to be more nuanced, more balanced rather than prematurely celebrating victory because actually there isn't a victory yet against the pandemic.”
Muhajarine called on Moe to continue to urge people to get their first dose of vaccine. The premier should also encourage those who got their vaccine to talk about it with friends and family, he added.
The responsibility for communication goes beyond government, he said. “People need to do their part, as well as the government.”
Wong said he thinks more information from the government would be helpful at this stage of the pandemic. More specific information about the location of cases, as well as statistics about vaccine status and how this is reflected in case numbers, is important, he added. “The more granular information that we all have, the better and easier it's going to be for us to understand what's happening.”
Wong said he does not think hospitals will become overwhelmed, as happened earlier this year, but people will still get sick with COVID-19 and some will die, including young people.
That's why the messaging from the government continues to be vital, he said.
“For me, the key message here is that the pandemic is not over and we can't just forget about everything that we've kind of learned over the course of the last 15, 16 months,” Wong said. “And I think balancing optimism with an appropriate amount of caution is the right way forward.”