Some ominous words are coming from the province’s chief medical health officer when it comes to the economy.
Dr. Saqib Shahab says it is a last resort, but with the amount of COVID-19 cases still being considerably higher than he would like it to be, it may be time to get even tougher with restrictions.
“You know this week we have continued to see numbers bounce up and down, 250, 300, 400, 300 again so if you continue to see cases as high as this week, I will be speaking with Mr. (health minister) Merriman about additional measures that may be required.” Shahab said during a briefing at the Saskatchewan Legislature Thursday afternoon.”
Shahab says the numbers which show Saskatchewan has the highest number of new cases per capita (313 or 25.9 new cases per 100,000 population) amongst the provinces means we could see another shutdown like what we first saw in March. He says the idea is not off the table at this time.
“Unfortunately, you know the hammer approach works like it did in March, but it comes at a great cost.” Shahab said. “That is the last resort and I think as much as we can do with the measures we have in place is the right way, but we have to see the numbers go down.”
Meanwhile, the Saskatchewan Health Authority is saying the pace of distribution when it comes to COVID-19 vaccines needs to be quicker or the province could run out of doses. That being said, authority president and CEO Scott Livingstone still expects everyone who wants to be vaccinated to have had that procedure done before September