‘Let’s not trip’: Premier asks for care this Easter weekend

People in Saskatchewan will be celebrating their second pandemic Easter this weekend.

The COVID-19 rules and recommendations vary depending on where in Saskatchewan a person lives, but regardless Premier Scott Moe is asking people to be careful.

“Be very, very careful in what you are doing as we approach the holiday season. Be very careful with what your family is doing as we approach the holiday season,” Moe said this week.

In the Regina area, the tighter rules mean no celebrating inside at restaurants, no private gatherings, and smaller church services.

Chief medical health officer Dr, Saqib Shahab is urging extreme caution in Regina. When asked, both he and Moe reiterated that there’s a ban on private gatherings in Regina.

Though there aren’t at this point any public health orders for communities with high numbers of COVID variant cases like Moose Jaw, both Shahab and Moe also urged extreme caution.

“I would urge them to consider potentially not gather this weekend. (We) just have a few weeks to go and we’re going to be through this. Let’s not have a bunch of spread of this variant just in the final few metres of the race,” said Moe.

Shahab noted that, even before the current case situation, people would gather indoors and it would result in people getting sick and people in their 40s and 50s having to go into the ICU.
If people are going to get together this weekend, Shahab said doing it outside is a better option.

“Meet and greet each other outdoors, spend time outdoors while maintaining that physical distance. But gathering indoors, especially in the south, I think is high risk,” said Shahab.