Shahab urges everyone to ‘stay vigilant’ during winter months

Daily COVID-19 case numbers in Saskatchewan are continuing a slow decline, with Tuesday’s total of 107 confirmed cases the lowest number in nearly three months.

However, that doesn’t mean this is a time to relax, according to the province’s chief medical health officer, Dr. Saqib Shahab.

“Although case numbers are going down, I think we need to remain very vigilant and we need to stay vigilant, especially because we need our case numbers to go down in hospital and acute care and ICU, which will take four to six weeks at least to come down,” Shahab said during a technical briefing Tuesday.

Shahab said hospital numbers need to come down to a sustainable level, which he said is around 15 people in ICU and 30 or 40 in hospital. As of Tuesday, there were 222 COVID patients in Saskatchewan hospitals, with 48 in ICUs.

Scott Livingstone, the CEO of the Saskatchewan Health Authority, said there is still significant pressure on ICUs right now, though he hopes to see some stabilization in cases in the next week or two.

Shahab said in Europe, countries with a higher vaccination rate and where it doesn’t get cold are doing very well, like Portugal. But countries that do get cold are seeing an upward trend in cases as people move indoors.

That’s why Shahab said people in Saskatchewan need to keep their guard up through winter all the way to March so hospitalizations can stay down.

Shahab said all the small things people have been doing have made a difference, but he encouraged everyone to go beyond the public health orders and limit themselves when it comes to gathering with others.

“There’s no gathering limit in your home, which we had in place if you recall last winter, which was very strict, but at this point, I would urge caution that (you) gather indoors with a small, consistent group, two of three households, (with everyone) fully vaccinated,” said Shahab.

Shahab said people should be “thoughtful” when gathering during the holidays in December.

The doctor made another push for vaccinations, saying that with areas in the province dealing with lower vaccine coverage, there’s still a lot of potential for case surges to happen.

Shahab talked about the southeast and central-east parts of the province which didn’t see many cases during the early part of the pandemic but, in this fourth wave, have seen more cases than in the previous 17 months.

“It just goes to show that if you have 30 to 40 per cent of your population unvaccinated, 12 and older, you can still see substantive waves,” said Shahab.