Health minister confident in decision to remove health measures

Saskatchewan Health Minister Paul Merriman called it an exciting day, pointing out that people wearing masks in public is no longer up to the government.

The public health order was dropped Monday, the first time there were no COVID rules in the province since September.

“I’m seeing a mixture of some people who are still wearing their masks and some people that are choosing not to wear their masks. I think everybody is respecting each other that this is the time for Saskatchewan people to be able to shed the public health measures and do their own personal risk assessment when they’re going out,” Merriman said.

Merriman doesn’t expect case numbers or hospitalizations to rise as a result of the removal of health measures. He said those numbers have flattened out recently. However, a recent presentation to doctors in Saskatchewan anticipated the opposite.

What there will be, according to Merriman, is a positive effect on mental health, with unvaccinated people now able to go out to restaurants and public events.

“I think this is a huge step forward for people to be able to make their own decision on what they want to do when they go out in the general public, like it was prior to COVID coming along,” he said.

The minister did make a point of saying the virus isn’t gone; It’s still present in Saskatchewan and people should still test if they have symptoms and then isolate if positive.

Saskatchewan was the first province to get rid of public masking, but Merriman doesn’t think it was rushed.

“This was very calculated as to when we could start to move on our public health restrictions. We started that a couple of weeks ago and we (finished) that off (Monday),” Merriman said.

He’s confident in the decision to remove mandates.

There are plenty of people in the province who aren’t confident. Some are concerned about themselves and their loved ones, particularly those who are immunocompromised, who are at high risk, and who have kids too young to be vaccinated.

Merriman said for those who are worried, it’s their choice to wear a mask or go out in crowded public areas.

He also pointed to the tools he said the province has to deal with COVID, including rapid tests, treatments for those at high risk, and vaccines and booster shots – which he said is the best way to protect yourself.

“And if you’ve done that, it’s time for Saskatchewan to start moving forward and living with COVID,” the health minister said.

When it comes to younger kids in particular, Merriman said that if parents are concerned, they can look into their options.

“Whether that is at home or some type of remote learning, whether that’s masking or other options that the education system can provide,” he said.

With the government stepping away from public health measures, it’s now up to each individual person to decide what is safe for them to be doing and whether they want to do things like wear a mask in public, but Merriman maintains that public health is still a government responsibility.

“But what I’m saying is each individual has to be able to help out and do their part to be able to make sure instead of the government telling you what you do, and where you can go, and who you can be with. We’re asking the people of Saskatchewan to do your own personal risk assessment on this,” he continued.

Merriman, the premier and the province’s chief medical health officer have all spoken recently about a person doing their own risk assessment around COVID, and on Monday, Merriman said that risk assessment should include the understanding that COVID could be present anywhere.

Some in the province have wondered how they’re expected to do a risk assessment when, as part of the scaleback in the COVID response, the provincial government now publishes much less information about COVID cases in the province, and much less frequently.

Things like case numbers, deaths, and hospitalizations are only published once a week and, with the exception of the latter, the information is almost a week old by the time it’s released.

Merriman pointed out that new and active case numbers are much less accurate now.

“The caseload is a number that’s out there but it isn’t always going to be extremely accurate because of home testing, because of people not reporting in if they’ve tested positive or if they didn’t test and just felt sick for a few days and stayed home,” Merriman said.

Looking ahead, Merriman said he can’t predict the future but health officials are always watching.

“If there is something that changes in the future, the premier and I have always said that we are open to looking at what we need to do at that time. As far as what that is, I can’t tell you because I don’t know what we’re dealing with,” he said.

Saskatchewan’s hospitals

The Saskatchewan Health Authority (SHA) enacted its surge plan weeks ago but, with no briefings from the Provincial Emergency Operations Centre for several weeks, it hasn’t been clear how the SHA is faring.

On Monday, Merriman said there are positive signs. Absenteeism among workers is starting to come down, hospitalizations have stabilized, and authority officials are managing within their staffing allocations right now.

The minister said the health-care system is in a much better position than it was at the beginning of the year.

“The hospital system is certainly stressed but it’s not as stressed as it was a couple of months ago where we did have some pretty severe challenges that the front line staff was able to rise up and address that – and I can’t thank them enough for that,” Merriman said.

Last week, Premier Scott Moe extended the province’s state of emergency to continue to be able to move health workers around to address surges and other needs.

On Monday, Merriman said officials now have the capacity in the health system to manage the current caseload, but they need more time to be able to move workers back to their original jobs.

“We have 40,000-plus people, a lot of them are not in their original positions and we just can’t turn the page to be able to get them back into their original position, it does take some time, some scheduling and some organizing on that,” he said.

The surgical backlog in Saskatchewan has ballooned under the pandemic and Merriman and Moe have previously outlined some ambitious plans to get that down.

On Monday, Merriman couldn’t give a timeline on when that plan would start, saying there will be more announcements on surgeries when the next provincial budget comes down.

The provincial government has recently had to add more to the current budget to pay for COVID expenses — $112,751,000 through a special warrant.

Merriman said it’s the cost of the fourth wave, which hadn’t been planned for in the financials.

“We had some out-of-province costs (and) we had our hospital system was at full capacity so it wasn’t something that was anticipated back in January of last year,” he explained.

Saskatchewan still doesn’t know how much it cost to send patients to Ontario last fall; Merriman said the government is still waiting on the final bill.

The provincial budget is set to be released March 23.