Health minister eyeing hospitalizations as COVID cases rise

Active COVID-19 cases are rising in Saskatchewan and have been for weeks.

On July 20, there were 242 active cases in the province, and from there, the cases have gone up, reaching 650 as of Monday.

July 20 was nine days after the province took down all of its public health orders. Saskatchewan’s chief medical health officer, Dr. Saqib Shahab, has said it takes between 10 and 14 days to start seeing the effects of changes to public health orders.

Minister of Health Paul Merriman said the rising numbers tell him that people are out and about more.

“There’s events, there’s going to be contact between people, they’re going to visit people that they haven’t for a while,” said Merriman.

Merriman said health officials didn’t know what to expect after all the restrictions came down.

“We do know that there is going to be some days where we’re going to have some increased numbers,” said Merriman.

The minister explained that, if case numbers increase, that’s always concerning.

“But what I’m always watching for is how is that translating into the numbers that are actually hospitalized,” he said.

And Merriman admitted the jump in new cases on Saturday, to 130 for the day, is worrying, but he thinks it’s settled down a bit since then.

The minister also pointed out the vast majority of new cases are in people who aren’t fully vaccinated. On Monday, the province released numbers showing that about 10 per cent of the new cases reported in Saskatchewan in July were in people who were fully vaccinated.

“The best tool that we have is that vaccine shot … We have a lot of vaccines in the province right now — we have a lot in the north, a lot in rural. People can get fully vaccinated within 28 days, from not having anything to fully vaccinated,” said Merriman.

“If they choose not to get vaccinated, that’s their choice. But if they do that, they’re running the risk of contracting COVID, and potentially a severe outcome. So if they want to protect themselves, this is the best way of doing it.”

Overall, Merriman said things have gone well since the restrictions came down.

“We’ve had some pocket outbreaks in the north, we’ve had a few outbreaks declared in the cities, but in general the vaccines are working. We’ve seen the data to be able to prove that if you’re vaccinated, you have an extremely good chance of not getting sick, and certainly not getting extremely sick,” said Merriman.

Whether there will be a fourth wave this fall is still to be seen, said Merriman. But if there is an increase in cases, the minister said they’re prepared and have the vaccines to be able to deal with that.

Merriman couldn’t say how likely new public health orders would be if there were a fourth wave, but said previous orders were put in place because there were no other tools available. But now the province has vaccines.

“The vaccine will squish any outbreak faster than public health orders would,” said Merriman.