President and CEO of the Saskatchewan Health Authority, Scott Livingstone, says when surgeries and treatments begin to ramp up again, there will be plans in place to tackle the backlog. The government has promised an investment in surgeries, which is part of the provincial budgeting process. He adds that even through the fourth wave, the SHA has been able to maintain about half of its elective surgeries.

Saskatchewan’s Chief Medical Health Officer says although the number of COVID-19 cases in Saskatchewan is going down, there are still pressures in the health care system because the hospitalizations remain high. Dr. Saqib Shahab explains that when case numbers go down, it takes two to three weeks for that to reflect in hospitalizations and the last to see any decrease are the number of COVID cases in an ICU. He notes that one of the reasons the case numbers are going down could be because there are fewer tests being done.

Dr. Shahab says there has been a five per cent rise in vaccines for both first and second doses, but it varies across the province. The larger cities are seeing higher vaccination rates than rural areas and the far north. He points to Southeast and Central East Saskatchewan, which have had some outbreaks in the past, but the number of cases was relatively low, until the fourth wave. He says, “It just goes to show that if you have 30 to 40 per cent of your population unvaccinated, 12 and older, you can still see substantive waves.”

The Chief Medical Health Officer urges everyone to continue to follow all the safety protocols because there are five months of winter ahead of us. He adds there are around 125,000 children not eligible to be vaccinated and just under 300,000 people 12 and older who aren’t vaccinated yet.