Murray Mandryk: Third COVID-19 wave a struggle for us all

By Murray Mandryk

The good news is we are getting a lot of vaccines in the arms of a lot of people and it is saving lives.

As of the writing of this, 457 Saskatchewan people have died of COVID-19-related illness — a devastating number. However, compared with Manitoba that saw rampant outbreaks this winter in long-term care homes that have so far produced 951 deaths in that province, we have enjoyed success.

Also as of the writing of this, 21.8 per cent of Saskatchewan people had received their first shot — second best in the nation only slightly behind Quebec.

Admittedly, Saskatchewan also owns some less favourable statistics. Our 36,882 total cases have now slipped ahead of Manitoba (35,4589).

Our current 202 hospitalizations (Manitoba has 138 in hospital) and seven-day average of 274 new cases a day (Manitoba’s seven-day average is less than half of that at 130 cases a day) are both, on a per capita basis, are among the worst in the nation.

What all this means is that while Saskatchewan has managed to keep down the death toll, we are seeing more people and younger people getting sicker. This is translating into longer stays in ICUs, tying up beds.

What we have been doing isn’t working as well as it we need it to work. Things needed to change.

For that that reason, the Saskatchewan Party did the right thing by changing its vaccine rollout strategy and extending some additional restrictions to the entire province.

Neither will be popular with critics of Premier Scott Moe’s government — many of who vehemently argue that the Sask. Party administration needed to be more nimble in its approach to get vaccines to those more vulnerable and needed to got much faster imposing further, more severe provincewide restrictions.

Such criticism has its validity. There has been a penchant within this government to move too slowly and cautiously when it comes to change. This is a growing problem in this third wave where new variants spread more rapidly to younger people who are getting sicker.

With a sizeable portion of Saskatchewan seniors and those over 50 years having received their first shots, it only makes sense to get vaccines to younger people who are most at risk of being potentially exposed because of their jobs.

Mere hours after saying during a rare Saturday morning sitting of the legislature that it just couldn’t move off it’s strategy of mass vaccinations at age-based strategy because it was the quickest way to get the vaccines out, the government opened up vaccines to younger police officers in Regina.

That was followed by an announcement two days later that police officers, firefighters, pharmacists and those who working in places with pharmacies would be prioritized as supplies were available.

Given that many pharmacies are located in urban Safeway and Superstores or in big box stores like Walmart and Costco, that means we may be opening things up to a lot of younger and more vulnerable people working as cashiers.

While this could lead to more protection for frontline workers most exposed to the public, the problem may be that we don’t have the vaccine supply to go around.

AstraZeneca is not being doled out to those less than 55 years old because of rare blood clot cases. Similarly, the Johnson & Johnson vaccine has been place on pause because of extreme remote incidents of blood clotting.

Given this challenge, it is more important than ever to stop the spread.

To the chagrin of many in the province, Health Minister Paul Merriman re-imposed provincewide restrictions that limit households from visiting and limit church services to 30 people.

Many doctors and epidemiologists worry these measures and strategies are still not enough.

It’s been a long fight, but it looks like we all still have to do more.