what is now crystal clear is moe’s government had no meaningful plan to deal with this fourth wave — a reality only punctuated by last thursday’s announcement of a provincial emergency operations centre (peoc) to better align pandemic responses.
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judging by the angry response from doctors during their weekly update from saskatchewan health authority medical leaders thursday evening, it isn’t exactly clear what — if any — role the sha had in planning this new direction that suggests this is more of a resource-deployment and/or organizational crisis than a medical one.
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in the three months since the reopening, covid-19 cases in saskatchewan (as of monday) increased 47 per cent from 49,260 to 72,451 , accounting for 32 per cent of all the cases in the 19 months since the pandemic began in the province. similarly, covid-19-related deaths have increased by 178 (or 31 per cent) in that three-month period to 751 from 573.
beyond the fact that we were repeatedly forewarned by doctors of the impact of the fourth wave, the tragedy is that the government clearly had indicators by mid- to late-august that the delta variant was taking hold in the unvaccinated community and — most critically — that people were clearly led by the government to think the pandemic was over.
there were only 26,849 first vaccine doses doled out between july 11 and aug. 11 — a paltry average of 866 a day. compare that with 51,990 first doses — 1,926 per day — since sept. 16 when moe announced vaccine requirements to attend certain public venues like movie theatres and restaurants.
what would our icus look like today if moe’s may roadmap had simply required vaccine passports to public events including large sporting events as we now have?
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