Saskatchewan’s COVID-19 restrictions will be up for review this week as case numbers continue to increase in the province. Friday is when Saskatchewan’s current COVID-19 public health measures expire.
On Friday, Health Minister Paul Merriman acknowledged that the province’s seven-day average concerns him, but he said it wasn’t unexpected.
He mentioned the government was anticipating a surge in cases after the holiday season.
“If I can emphasize this more and more, we need to adhere to the public health guidelines,” he urged to residents. “That’s going to be the number one indicator on how the measures go and how we are going to continue to see where the numbers go over the next little while.”
Merriman expects an announcement on what those restrictions will look like for the coming weeks will happen early this week. While he did not indicate whether restrictions would remain the same or if they would change, he pointed to Saskatchewan’s numbers “trending in the wrong direction” at this time.
“In other jurisdictions across our country and around the world, they have tightened up,” explained Merriman.
“I don’t want to speculate. Again, this is coming from Dr. Shahab’s advice. We have talked about some preliminary things on what he was seeing and he identified the same thing we have all been identifying in that the numbers are going in the wrong direction.”
Saskatchewan’s seven-day average of daily cases is approaching 300, which is higher than Chief Medical Health Officer Dr. Saqib Shahab’s 120 daily case average target that he prefers for reducing restrictions.
