Huskies and Rams ready to battle to final whistle in Hardy Cup
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Kickoff on Saturday is set for 1 p.m. at Griffiths Stadium in Saskatoon.
Mick Anslow is concerned over how little information he has received from the government and health officials since returning from Mexico on the weekend.
Anslow and his wife, Donna, were on board Sunwing Flight WG540 from Cancun to Regina on Saturday — a flight that was identified by the provincial government as one from which all passengers must self-isolate for 14 days.
One of the cases of COVID-19 that was announced Wednesday was a person travelling from Cancun who was tested in Regina. There were 16 cases — two confirmed and 14 presumptive — of COVID-19 in the province as of Wednesday.
Anslow said that, in a row near him and his wife, a person was sneezing and coughing but the Anslows have no idea if that was the person who tested positive.
“I kept getting this look of horror from my wife like, ‘What’s going on with this guy? Is this guy sick? Are we going to get sick from him?’ ” Anslow said. “We took (disinfectant) wipes with us for the flight down and the flight back but you just can’t get clean enough.”
He said when they arrived in Regina, there was little information given to them about what to do.
“We came back on that flight and nothing was said about self-isolation or any problems. We’ve been off the grid for a week in Mexico,” Anslow said.
When the announcement came that their flight was one that was highlighted by the government, Anslow, 61, said they didn’t receive any sort of communication from the government and health officials and had to find out through the media.
“They go out and throw it on the air and didn’t tell anybody who was involved directly with it,” Anslow said. “I sent (the Saskatchewan Health Authority) an email expressing our concerns that our health is important to us as well as that person that was on board.
“We figured the least they could have done was tell us on the plane where this person was sitting so we’d know if we were socially isolated from him or her.”
Anslow said there were people on the plane who had heart or lung problems that the Anslows knew about.
“If it wasn’t for having the news on (Wednesday) afternoon, we wouldn’t have known about it,” he said.
Anslow said after a lengthy delay, the flight arrived in Regina on Sunday around 3 a.m. While he and his wife went out to grab some groceries Sunday morning, Anslow said they’ve been in self-isolation since.
“We’re very upset about this. The premier (Scott Moe) says we have to work through this together but yet they’re not including everyone in the plan. We were there (on the flight) first hand and I’ve been told absolutely nothing about it,” Anslow said.
The government is urging everyone who has travelled out of the country to self-isolate for 14 days when they return to Saskatchewan.
The province’s Chief Medical Health Officer, Dr. Saqib Shahab said he’s had discussion about what to do about travellers returning home.
He says it’s up to the travellers to seek out information for themselves, that airlines and government have been posting information on their sites.
Shahab says he’d like it to be more streamlined, so there’s only one place travellers have to go to check.
He said there hasn’t been any evidence in Canada of transmission in an airplane, though there would be special consideration in the event that someone was coughing a lot or moving around.
Shahab seemed to indicate that it wouldn’t do much good anyway. He said most people wouldn’t get sick until about six days after exposure, then it would take time for the test to come back, and by the time they have everything and post it online most people who were on the flight would be at the end of their two-weeks anyway.
Either way, Shahab said people are being told that, wherever they come back from, they need to self-isolate anyway.
“So you just have to be more aware, anytime you travel isolate yourself for two weeks, monitor your symptoms, but also, going forward, keeping monitoring your symptoms”