Murray Mandryk: Fighting COVID-19 requires more bad medicine

It’s likely time to set aside any notion that this COVID-19 fight will be over soon.

We are still in it for the long haul.

And rather than send out some out false signals than this will all be over soon because vaccines are on the way, it might be better if our politicians were straight with us.

Right now for Premier Scott Moe and his Saskatchewan Party government, that likely means an honest admission that lifting current restrictions on gatherings and events at Christmas would be highly unwise.

Of course, that’s not what anyone wants to hear and politicians are disinclined to tell people what they don’t want to hear.

But this COVID-19 fight tells us that we need to re-assess our priorities.

By all measures, it’s getting worse. Consider the numbers:

In the last Sunday-to-Sunday week (Nov. 22 to 29), Saskatchewan saw a record 1,766 new cases — an average of 252 new cases a day.

During the previous week of Nov. 15 to 22, the province saw 1,472 new cases — an average of 210 new cases a day. The previous week (Nov. 8-15) it was 1,104 cases or 158 a day. The week before that (Nov. 1-8), Saskatchewan had 697 new cases or an average of 97 a day.

The gloomy rise in cases is even more troubling when you compare November with October: During the week Oct. 25 to Nov. 1, the provincial saw 498 new cases or 71 a day.

The week of Oct. 18-25 saw 390 cases or 56 a day, Oct. 11-18 saw 238 cases or an average of 34 a day, Oct. 4-11 saw 133 new cases or 19 a day and September 27-Oct. 4 saw 97 new cases or 12 a day.

Accompanying the rising case numbers was a doubling of Saskatchewan deaths in November from the total accumulated in seven months. And with record hospitalizations, more

It’s not has if the government wasn’t warned. During a press conference on Nov. 20, it released “modelling numbers”, the government unveiled a series of possible scenarios.

The worst case showed a nightmare scenario of 469,000 COVID-19 cases (8,390 a day) in the next six months producing 4,800 deaths — numbers most agreed to be unrealistically high because they represent an infection rate unseen anywhere in the world.

However, the best case scenario suggested we would seen only 4,800 more cases in the next six months if we adhered to stricter mask-wearing everywhere in the province and strict limits on household contacts.

After Nov. 20, we added about 2,400 cases — half the best case scenario — in just 10 days.

This should have served as a call to action for Moe’s government.

Yet while the government did call the COVID-19 fight its priority in its throne speech last week included a call for SaskPower to “reduce electricity charges by 10 per cent for one year”. Also, it’s first bill was to make good on its election promise to implement a Saskatchewan Home Renovation Tax Credit — a 10.5-per-cent tax credit on up to $20,000 of eligible home renovation expenses incurred between Oct. 1, 2020 and Dec. 21, 2022.”

One can understand and somewhat respect the determination of Moe to make good on the popular promises that got the Sask. Party re-elected.

One also gets Moe’s determination not to lockdown the province, as has pretty much happened in neighbouring Manitoba.

Moe insists that the incremental measures already taken can stop the spread of the virus. As stated in the throne speech: “We can, and will, do both.”

But the simply reality is that what we’re doing right now hasn’t been working.

Right now trying to do both isn’t stopping rising number. Quite likely, we are going to have to do a lot more of what we don’t like.

We have to be realistic.