Moe: No additional public health orders necessary

Saskatchewan is maintaining the status quo with its COVID-19 public health orders as Omicron cases continue to mount.

During a media conference Wednesday, the government announced the current public health measures — including indoor masking and proof of vaccination — are being extended to Feb. 28. They’ll be reassessed at that time.

Beyond those extensions …

“I don’t think it’s necessary when you look at our hospitalizations that we need to add any additional public health orders to the suite that we have already,” Premier Scott Moe told Gormley. “And this is in large part due to what Saskatchewan people are doing.”

As of Tuesday’s COVID update, there were 121 people in Saskatchewan hospitals due to COVID — including incidental cases — with 11 in intensive care.

Moe pointed out that since Dec. 21, COVID-related hospitalizations in the province are up by just over 20 per cent (from 98) while ICU admissions are down by nearly 65 per cent (from 31).

During the media conference, Moe said government officials have watched case and hospitalization numbers increase in other jurisdictions that have more stringent public health orders in place.

That fact, along with the impact further restrictions could have on the populace, prompted his government’s decision to leave measures the way they were.

“There are other consequences to keeping our students home from school,” Moe said. “There are other consequences to not allowing a grandmother, for instance, to see maybe her children and her grandchildren by putting in gathering restrictions. There are consequences to people not being able to go to their place of employment and actually losing their job for a time period.

“So what we are doing in this province is making every effort to make the tools available to allow people in Saskatchewan )to make their own decisions) — and they are learning how to live with COVID — and they’re utilizing those tools to reduce the risk to the greatest degree possible.”

Moe believes most people in the province are not gathering as much as they did previously, but he admitted there still are going to be interruptions in some services as the Omicron wave continues.

“It’s going to run its course here in this province and it’s going to run its course across Canada and around the world,” Moe said. “It will peak and then it will start to decline, which may already be happening in a couple of countries in other areas of the world.

“Until that happens in Saskatchewan, we will see some increased hospitalizations. We will see some pressure on our health-care system.”

Because of that, Moe said, the Provincial Emergency Operations Centre on Thursday is going to lay out some surge plans for the health-care system.

As well, Moe noted the province plans to examine the possibility of allowing health-care workers from other countries to work in Saskatchewan facilities while their paperwork is being processed that will allow them to work in the province full-time.

Dr. Saqib Shahab, Saskatchewan’s chief medical health officer, said Saskatchewan is in “an entirely different phase of the pandemic,” with four-figure case totals being reported.

But he noted those numbers aren’t informative because only about 20 to 30 per cent of cases are being caught through testing.

“(Omicron) is five to 10 times more transmissible, so we are going to see five to 10 times more cases,” Shahab said. “We have to make sure we don’t see them all at once over the next two to four weeks.

“We can spread it out over six to eight weeks so that the pressure is lower at any given time and minimizing unnecessary travel between communities as well so that all communities, large or small, don’t get the peak at the same time.”

Shahab admitted if pressure gets too high on the province’s health-care and education sectors and in workplaces, other measures may be required. But he noted the best tools remain masks, proof of vaccination and booster shots.

“We really need to revisit the basics,” Shahab said. “With the order extension into February, those are the most important tools.”

Moe also said Saskatchewan won’t implement a vaccine tax like Quebec is considering, instead relying on residents to get vaccinated and to get their booster shots when they’re eligible.

“Saskatchewan hasn’t looked at this,” Moe said. “We have no intent to ultimately look at a ‘vax tax,’ if you will.

“If Quebec wants to look at whether or not they can do that, which the premier indicated yesterday, they’re free to look into that. We’re not doing that here.”

The government continues to ask people to take rapid antigen tests to help limit the spread of the Omicron variant. Moe told Gormley the province is getting four million more rapid tests from the federal government this month and 4.5 million next month.