The Government of Saskatchewan is asking people to be patient and keep the course until more vaccines become available.
As it stands right now, Saskatchewan has used over 100 percent of its available vaccines, and are waiting on more from the federal government.
Premier Scott Moe says with Phase 2 of the province’s vaccine rollout plan soon to begin, the government is trying to include everyone they can, including those who are asking the government to be considered priority.
“I’ve heard, over the last course of the last while, some concerns from number of health care workers about not being part of the Phase 2 sequencing, and as you know, many health care workers are included in Phase 1, and our officials are working on any revisions that may be necessary to potentially include some additional categories of health care workers in Phase 1,” said Moe.
Many have criticized Phase 2, saying it doesn’t prioritize front-line workers. The Saskatchewan NDP even went as far as to call the age-sequencing plan political in nature.
Moe says it’s all about trying to prevent as many severe outcomes as possible, with the limited quantity of vaccines available to the province.
“The stark reality of the situation is that elderly people tend to have more serious outcomes from COVID-19, we’ve seen that,” said Moe. “88 percent of Saskatchewan fatalities were people over the age of 60, that is precisely why our priority is to sequence our vaccine rollout primarily by age.”
Provincial Chief Medical Health Officer, Dr. Saqib Shahab noted that Saskatchewan is on a good trajectory of lower daily case totals and hospitalizations and urged everyone to keep following all the guidelines in place.
He says, while it may be tempting during the cold snap and the February break coming up, now is not a good time to travel.
“As we all prepare for Family Day weekend, please remember that this I the not the time to go travelling out of province, or far from your home,” said Shahab. “I think it’s so important, with our declining trend, that we continue to see this for the next little while.”