REGINA -- Saskatchewan's top doctor believes two rounds of public health measures announced in November, have had an impact but not enough to slow the spread of COVID-19
First on Nov. 19, masks were made mandatory province-wide; indoor, private gatherings were limited to five people and visitations were suspended at long-term care homes.
Then a week later, the province suspended all team and group sports, lowered the indoor public gathering limit to 30 and reduced capacity at restaurants, bars and entertainment facilities.
Both rounds of measures were considered a "slow down" with Premier Scott Moe stating he was hopeful they could be lifted in time for the holiday season.
The measures have had an effect, but not enough.
"We’ve seen some positive indicators that those measures are having a positive impact, but there’s still some more work to do, we need to stabilize our case numbers even further," Premier Scott Moe said during Monday’s news conference.
When the Nov. 27 measures came into effect, Saskatchewan’s seven-day average of new cases was 268, or 22.1 per 100,000 people. On Monday, the province’s average sat at 262.
The province’s seven-day test positivity rate sat at 7.83 per cent on Nov. 27 and came in at 8.43 per cent on Monday.
"Our case numbers aren’t going up as much as some of the earlier models predicted… but they’re also not going down as quickly as we would like," said Dr. Saqib Shahab, Saskatchewan’s Chief Medical Health Officer.
"While we aren’t seeing many of the outbreaks that were happening in October and early November, we are still seeing significant transmission in the household setting."
According to Dr. Shahab, the average number of close contacts has dropped from eight to five.
However, household exposures accounted for 94 of 311 cases with known exposures last week, which is why the province wasn’t able to loosen restrictions for the holidays as the Premier had hoped a few weeks ago.
"I was hopeful that we were going to reduce the curve even more, reduce the rate of infection even more, than we have, we haven’t been able to do that," Moe said.
The Premier added that he didn’t regret bringing in Monday’s stronger measures sooner.
In a statement, the Opposition called the Government’s handling of the second wave "chaotic".
"Today’s announcement shows that the government’s half measures announced in November have failed," wrote Ryan Meili, Leader of the NDP in a statement.
"There is nothing that was announced today that could not have been put in effect weeks earlier, when a targeted circuit breaker could have actually had a tangible impact on the spread of COVID-19 in our communities."
While the Premier remains opposed to a lockdown, he said if daily case numbers don’t start trending down, one could be in the province’s future after the holidays.
The new restrictions announced on Monday are in effect until Jan. 15.
