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(File Photo/paNOW Staff)

Leaders say Moe missed opportunity to set public health measures for Thanksgiving weekend

Oct 10, 2021 | 1:59 PM

Premier Scott Moe and the provincial government made the decision not to set gathering limits for Thanksgiving.

This leaves Saskatchewan residents the freedom to gather with their family this holiday, which is welcome news for some, but for others they were hoping to see tighter restrictions.

President of the Saskatchewan Union of Nurses Tracy Zambory told paNOW nurses were hoping to hear from the premier that going into the weekend there would be public health rules put into place to protect people.

“But instead, we got some kind of bizarre administrative oversight,” she said. “How is this possible necessary? It’s just something that causes people to become more disheartened. They’re working as hard as they can in Prince Albert, for the people and area but are getting virtually no support from the government to try to do that.”

Lac La Ronge Indian Band Chief Tammy Cook-Searson said Moe missed an opportunity to limit the gathering sizes in order to flatten the curve. She explained the City of Saskatoon put a motion forward to the province asking for the gathering sizes to be limited to 15 but was denied.

“Right now, we see the highest rates of ICU admissions… and the hospitals are full of patients with COVID-19 and then if somebody has other health issues which other health issues still continue, or accidents happen. The healthcare system is very stretched right now,” Cook-Searson said.

Meanwhile, a joint media release from Dr. Ibrahim Khan, medical health officer for Indigenous Services Canada and Dr. Nnamdi Ndubuka, medical health officer for the Northern Inter-Tribal Health Authority said Saskatchewan is seeing record high of daily new COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations and ICU admissions. The release, written for the First Nation community members of Saskatchewan, said factors driving the higher rate of cases is low vaccination rates and the new delta variant.

“Household gatherings remain the biggest source of transmission of COVID-19 in Saskatchewan,” the release said.

Sharing food and being in close quarters are high-risk activities in regard to the spread of the virus. The two doctors recommend residents to meet outside, if possible, because transmission is much lower. If unvaccinated, they recommend to not gather with friends and family this holiday.

With files from Jaryn Vecchio

ian.gustafson@pattisonmedia.com

On Twitter: @IanGustafson12