Moe reiterates lockdowns not currently in Saskatchewan’s COVID strategy

Premier Scott Moe says the Saskatchewan government isn’t pondering the use of lockdowns to get a handle on COVID-19 in the province — at least not yet.

“As we find our way through time, I don’t think everything is ever all off the table,” Moe told Roy Green on the weekend. “But lockdowns I don’t think are the thing that any government really is considering at this point in time. We have so many other tools that are available.

“We’re masking indoors here in Saskatchewan. As of Friday, we’ve introduced our proof-of-vaccination record where if you aren’t vaccinated and you work for the provincial government or you want to go to a restaurant, you want to go to a nightclub (or) you want to go into a number of different venues in the province, you do need to provide your proof of vaccination.”

Moe said tools like those are helping in the province, although numbers continue to climb.

As of Sunday, a record 321 COVID patients were in Saskatchewan hospitals. The province reported 354 new cases Sunday — the lowest daily total since Sept. 11 — but three more deaths increased the total in Saskatchewan since Sept. 1 to 108.

“As we do move forward, there are other things that we have available to us now that we didn’t in months gone by that can help keep people out of hospital,” Moe said. “There are monoclonal antibodies. There are a number of early interventions that just simply haven’t been available to us.

“They’re not replacements for vaccination, but they may be helpful and we need to use all of the tools that are available to us today — public health measures, vaccination uptake and early intervention opportunities that may be before us.”

Moe once again pointed a finger at the unvaccinated for the recent surge in cases in the province, as well as the strain being put on the health-care system.

Of Sunday’s total number of cases, 275 weren’t vaccinated — although that number included 77 people under the age of 11, the group that currently isn’t eligible to receive a COVID shot.

According to data on the provincial government’s COVID data, vaccination rates in the far north are lagging behind those in every other area.

Only 62 per cent of people in the far northwest zone have received one shot and just 50 per cent have got two doses. The far north-central region (69 per cent first dose, 45 per cent second) and far northeast (71 per cent first shot, 56 per cent second) also are in the bottom three among vaccination rates by region.

Moe has asked for help from the federal government and from local leaders to increase vaccination rates among Indigenous people in the province in hopes of getting the population in those regions inoculated. Public health measures such as vaccination passports also are being applied to increase uptake.

“It is proving to be working,” Moe said of that strategy. “Our vaccination rates today are about four or five times what they were three weeks ago.”

Provincewide, 82 per cent of eligible Saskatchewan residents have received one dose and 73 per cent are fully vaccinated.

Moe also has asked Justin Trudeau for help, but not to the extent of sending in the military. The request is for specialized health-care workers.

“I did speak with the prime minister late last week and I asked him if he does have access in very short order to any very specialized health-care people like critical care nurses for example (and) respirologists, things of that nature,” Moe said. “We could use those on the ground here in Saskatchewan to augment our ICU capacity.”