Shahab offers perspective on COVID-19 numbers in province

The number of COVID-19 cases in Saskatchewan continues to climb, but Dr. Saqib Shahab has a suggestion for the province’s residents.

“We should not worry about case numbers; we should not be obsessed with that,” Saskatchewan’s chief medical health officer told Gormley on Friday, a few hours before the provincial government announced another 27 new cases. “Rising case numbers is not the issue. The issue is understanding where transmission is happening and what are we doing about it.

“Transmission is happening not through the economy opening, not through the retail sector (and) not in the essential workplaces that have been kept going. Transmission is happening around the most mundane of things: Sharing a meal with friends and family. Getting too close over a drink. Not physical distancing in a gathering or a place of worship.

“Those are the things we need to watch out for.”

The new cases reported Friday increased the total in the province to date to 1,099.

The numbers over the past three days — a total of 129 cases, primarily in the south and central regions — are the result of what Shahab called “sporadic transmission.”

Some of that is due to travellers returning to the province and some is a result of gatherings in restaurants, bars and churches — places where Shahab stressed social distancing is still a necessity.

The majority of the recent cases, however, have been on Hutterite communities.

“We’ve seen a significant increase in people who are living in communal living settings …,” Shahab said. “Some of the increase in numbers is due to very active case-finding, which we wouldn’t do in an extended family, for example, if there was a case.

“Those are very specific settings. We should not be distracted by the active case-finding in those settings and think it’s just an issue in communal living settings. There’s definitely an upswing in Saskatchewan.”

The province in recent weeks has identified the rural municipalities in which the affected Hutterite colonies lie, but it hasn’t gone so far as to name the communities.

Shahab noted there also is transmission through family gatherings across Saskatchewan and those aren’t identified specifically, so the same should apply to Hutterite communities.

“(Identifying them) does not inform the public of risk and stigmatizes a particular group and, within that group, particular colonies that actually have stepped up and said, ‘Please come and test us. We want to know how widespread COVID is,’ versus communities who may not have realized they need to be very vigilant when monitoring and testing if symptomatic,” he said.

“Similarly, it would be the same for any family who gets together over the summer and (transmits) the disease. We would not identify a family cluster: ‘Family XYZ got together at this cabin.’ There’s no purpose.”

Testing numbers in Saskatchewan have increased since the province made universal testing available July 14. While there have been complaints about the speed with which tests are done — and with which results are returned — Shahab believes the province is making strides.

“The testing capacity is there to support situations in the southwest and central-west,” he said. “In P.A., three weeks ago, we saw six hospitalizations after many weeks of no cases, so testing has picked up there as well.

“This is really good. Testing is moving in the right direction.”