The City of Saskatoon is taking a proactive approach to COVID-19 by adopting a framework that will determine what measures will be taken by the City for its facilities, operations and services when the province doesn’t have any restrictions in place.

The COVID-19 framework was adopted at the Governance and Priorities Committee meeting this week which is made up of all of City Council.  The framework consists of four levels ranging from minimum risk to critical. The four levels are based off of four different calculations: 7-day average for weekly COVID-19 cases, 7-day test positivity rate, effective reproduction rate and vaccination rates.

City administration says Saskatoon is currently in the high risk, entering the critical level based off numbers from September 19th.

Each level lists what the City would do in response at its facilities, for its operations and services along with what actions would be taken at the municipal level and what requests would be made to the province to help slow the spread of the virus in the community.

City Manager, Jeff Jorgenson says with the province bringing back a mask mandate and implementing vaccination requirements for October 1st, a request for a mask mandate isn’t required, although the recommendation from city administration is the that the city write the province asking to limit gathering sizes. No official request to the province has been made.

Saskatoon’s Director of Emergency Management, Pamela Goulden-McLeod say the recommendations attached to each level is for consideration and the City doesn’t have to implement them. City Council also has the ability to call a special meeting to move up or down a level.