The City of Saskatoon is calling on the Saskatchewan government to bring back gathering restrictions as COVID-19 cases continue to rise.
At a special city council meeting Wednesday, doctors told councillors ICUs in the province are getting close to having to make tough decisions around who gets what level of care.
“The recent changes in terms of introducing mandatory masking in the province and so on, I think, is going to have a positive impact, but it’s not by itself enough to truly control this,” explained respirologist Dr. Mark Fenton.
Doctors said services like organ donation and elective surgeries are being put on hold as staff are rerouted to care for the most critically ill, meaning less resources for non-COVID-19 medical care.
“We absolutely do not want to end up in acute care system collapse where you cannot get services from the health system,” said Dr. Jasmine Hasselback, a medical health officer with the Saskatchewan Health Authority.
Now the city is calling for the province to limit gathering sizes.
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The proposed restrictions would include only allowing up to 150 people max for event facilities like casinos and theatres, or one third of the place’s total capacity, whichever was smaller.
Mayor Charlie Clark said the city needs to act, but would need the province to bring in gathering restrictions.
“Given the urgency of the situation, given what we’ve known and have heard and is commented, we have one of the worst challenging situations when it comes to COVID-19 in the country in Saskatoon,” Clark said.
The request also asks for private gatherings to be limited to 15 people. Indoor and outdoor public gatherings would be limited to 150.
However, provisions would be made if proof of vaccination or a negative test were provided.
Fenton said he’s concerned about whether the province could react to a major accident, pointing to a bus crash southwest of Saskatoon earlier this month.
“If that were to happen with kids onboard and there’s a mass casualty event on the scale of the Humboldt Broncos or something like that, I don’t know that we’d be able to provide the level of care we did when that happened,” he said.
City council voted unanimously to send the plea to the province. There was no specific timeline on when these measures would be brought in to place. Its unclear when the province could respond.
Despite the united front on the issue, many councilors later voted against a motion to cancel a planned public swim Thursday at Harry Bailey Aquatic Centre.
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