Shahab warns Sask. COVID-19 rates suggest ‘fall and winter of misery’

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Saskatchewan’s soaring COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations threaten Thanksgiving and Christmas, the province’s chief medical health officer says.

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But neither Dr. Saqib Shahab nor Health Minister Paul Merriman announced any new restrictions intended to limit the pandemic’s spread during an online news conference on Wednesday.

Shahab hinted that further measures could be considered amid unprecedented levels of hospitalizations, ICU admissions and active cases since the provincial government’s last COVID-19 update two weeks ago.

He suggested that people should be cautious about indoor household gatherings, which account for about 20 per cent of cases, and advised unvaccinated people to stay away from these.

“If we see that the mask mandate and other measures may stabilize the curve, but it will take a long time to come down,” Shahab told reporters. “We will not only not have Thanksgiving (Oct. 11) at this rate. We will likely not have Christmas and New Year at this rate.

“It will be a fall and winter of misery at the current rate.”

Shahab said if COVID-19 rates fail to drop, new measures will need to be considered, including possibly prohibiting unvaccinated people from visiting other households. However, he and Merriman declined to offer thresholds that would trigger the implementation of more measures.

An “untenable situation” looms if the current pandemic measures and rising vaccination rates fail to reduce case numbers over the next two to four weeks, Shahab said.

“We are having a mass casualty event every day now for the foreseeable future,” he added.

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Saskatoon city council voted Wednesday to ask the province to impose limits on gatherings to address the high case rates and hospitalizations in the city.

The Canadian Medical Association, Saskatchewan Medical Association and Saskatchewan Union of Nurses have all called for stricter measures. So have high-profile doctors, including  Dr. Kevin Wasko, a Saskatchewan Health Authority executive.

Yet Merriman declined to use the word “crisis” to describe the situation in Saskatchewan, which now has the highest COVID-19 death rate, the highest new case rate and the lowest vaccination rate among the provinces.

He also deflected a question about what would qualify as a crisis.

“It’s an extremely challenging situation,” Merriman said. “We’ve never seen this before. The word ‘crisis’ can mean different things to different people. It’s certainly an extremely challenging time.”

The case numbers have stabilized, even though they remain high, Merriman said. He called the current health rules “pretty strict” and stressed again that the path out of the pandemic is through vaccination.

But he added that people need to assess the risk in their own behaviour.

Merriman said despite the strain on the health-care system from COVID-19 patients, people should still seek medical help when they need it.

“The health-care system is still intact,” he said.

Merriman said the province is still using modelling to help make decisions, but failed to directly answer a question about why Saskatchewan is not releasing pandemic modelling as it did earlier in the pandemic.

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He said modelling has experienced some challenges, such as failing to take into account vaccination rates and geographical disparities.

The province also announced Wednesday that it is expecting to receive a million rapid antigen tests that can be used by people to test themselves to see if they are infected with COVID-19.

The province may also buy more of these tests to help detect cases in people who are not experiencing symptoms.

By the middle of October, the self tests are expected to be available at Saskatchewan Public Safety Agency bases, municipal and First Nations fire halls and some Saskatchewan Health Authority locations.

ptank@postmedia.com

twitter.com/thinktankSK

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