No additional public health measures for Saskatoon, says Merriman

It’s a thumbs down from Saskatchewan’s health minister.

There won’t be any extra COVID-19-related public health measures for Saskatoon after Mayor Charlie Clark asked the province to bring in tighter rules late last week.

Last Thursday, Clark said the city was on “red alert” and he hoped the province would enact further measures to prevent hospitals and intensive care units from filling up — and to help prevent more people from dying or becoming seriously ill.

“I want to know that we are taking the right steps as a community to avoid that happening here in Saskatoon while we still can, and we aren’t going to wait until it’s too late,” he said.

But Health Minister Paul Merriman doesn’t see it that way. He’s counting on the additional vaccines being diverted to Saskatoon and the numerous immunization clinics to keep additional cases at a steady level. He says he hasn’t even spoken with Clark since the beginning of April.

“Right now, we’ve seen our numbers across the province stabilized. (In) Saskatoon, we still have ICU capacity,” he said Friday.

Merriman also said he doesn’t believe tightening up the rules will accomplish much.

“More measures aren’t necessarily going to fix the problem. It’s going to be adhering to the public health measures that are in place. As we’ve seen, there have been some incidents of people not adhering to that,” he added.

Clark said if the province puts in further health orders now, those regulations wouldn’t have to last as long as they might should the government wait any longer.

While nothing is expected to change for now, if cases increase, Merriman said he’d have to sit down with chief medical health officer Dr. Saqib Shahab.

“I haven’t seen the numbers jump in Saskatoon,” Merriman said. “We were over 100 in Regina on and off for probably a couple of weeks. We haven’t seen those numbers in Saskatoon, even though it’s a larger city.”

Right now, because the numbers are “fairly stable,” the health minster says he’ll continue to watch the situation.