‘This is an enormous wakeup call’: Masters reacts to Regina’s renewed COVID measures

Strict public health measures have been renewed in Regina as the city grapples with rising COVID-19 cases.

Mayor Sandra Masters says action had to be taken to stop the spread in the city.

“This is an enormous wakeup call and really unfortunate. This is hard on people (and) this has been hard on everyone,” she said Tuesday. “We’re asking for a few more weeks of really careful due diligence to bring these numbers down.

“These are really brutal decisions to have to make but given the numbers, it needs to happen and it needs to happen now.”

Masters says the rules will be looked at on a week-by-week basis to see if any changes will need to be made.

A group of Regina city councillors have been in favour of new measures.

Ward 8 Coun. Shanon Zachidniak says a group of councillors wanted to bring forward a notice of motion to speak about COVID during Wednesday’s budget meeting.

“It’s time for us to put additional measures in place for our city,” Zachidniak said prior to the province announcing the new measures. “The end of this is in sight as vaccines are rolling out but we’re in a particularly precarious and risky situation right now.”

She has already pulled her own kids — one in Grade 1 and one in pre-school — out of school and has them doing e-learning this week.

She said the motion wouldn’t be to recommend new rules, but would have just have shown support for them.

“We’re not meaning to be prescriptive here. (We’re) just throwing our support behind additional regulations in our city,” Zachidniak said.

A part of the new measures is the closure of all city recreation facilities starting on Sunday at 12:01 a.m.

Despite the closure of these facilities, the WHL bubble in Regina will continue at the Brandt Centre. The players are staying in the dorms at the University of Regina and Luther College.

“They’re housed separately and it’s well-contained and controlled in and out,” Masters said when asked about the teams’ apart from the bubble. “That will be allowed to continue.”

Masters hopes the renewed public health measures will start to show a downhill trend with the current state of COVID cases in the city.

“We’ve done really well last summer, we did really well in the fall (but) we need to be better right now,” Masters said. “I’m asking everyone to adhere to your household. If you go outside, please stick to your household members.”