SHA, Hutterian Safety Council working together to implement pandemic protocols

The Saskatchewan Health Authority has teamed up with the Hutterian Safety Council after a COVID-19 outbreak was declared at two Hutterite communities near Maple Creek.

Joe Kleinsasser is the chair of the safety council and says they’re focusing on education and communication.

“We’re not there to use a stick,” he said. “We’re just providing guidance and we’re reaching out and appealing to the common sense of people, basically.”

He says they did face some backlash at the beginning but now everyone is taking the COVID situation seriously and acting accordingly.

“(It helps) if you reassure people that, ‘Hey, these are the protocols in place. They work. You know, let’s abide by them,’ ” he said.

Some of the guidelines include reduced communal gathering sizes, following physical distancing guidelines, and implementing proper hygiene practices.

He says some people in the Hutterite communities may have been naive to think since they lived in an isolated community, they were protected from the pandemic — especially coming from a province with a relatively low population density, in an occupation such as agriculture where social distancing is easy.

“And from a culture that is traditionally separated from mainstream society, I suppose a lot of people thought there’s enough buffers here in place,” he said.

Kleinsasser says there has been a stigma at the colonies about getting tested. They have agriculture products like milk and eggs picked up from their colonies on a regular basis and some Hutterite community members fear that positive tests could lead to an economic shutdown of their communities.

As of Wednesday, there were 54 known cases of COVID-19 in the southern portion of the province. Most of them are linked to the outbreak at the two Hutterite communities.