‘Not quite out of the woods yet,’ mayor says as Regina contends with COVID cases, variants

Regina Mayor Sandra Masters made another plea to residents to follow public health measures.

“I think the message is to reinforce that we’re not quite out of the woods yet,” Masters told Gormley on Thursday morning.

“With the incidence of the variants and the transmissibility of it, we need to be a little bit more cautious, more than ever, in the next four to six weeks.”

The Queen City is the province’s COVID-19 hotspot.

As of Wednesday, 513 of 1,264 active cases were concentrated in the Regina zone.

There have been 135 confirmed cases of variants of concern in the province and 121 of them are in the Regina region. Those variants are more infectious and deadly.

On the matter of tightening restrictions, Masters said “part of the issue is about enforceability.”

“The (Saskatchewan Health Authority) has ultimate authority over it, frankly, as they should,” she said.

The city could close its recreation facilities. But according to  the city’s deputy chief medical officer, that’s not the source of the spread.

“(The source) is gathering in homes, and then it’s getting into cars to carpool to go to work (and people) not wearing a mask,” Masters said.

She urged people to resist the temptation to take risks as the weather becomes more pleasant.

“We have a tendency to burst out of our cabin fever, which is exponentially worse this year because of isolation from COVID, but people sort of let their guard down,” Masters said.