Here are highlights of the latest COVID-19 update in Regina on Tuesday.
Vaccines were a big focus of the latest news conference with Premier Scott Moe and chief medical health officer Dr. Saqib Shahab.
Moe noted there has been a “dramatic improvement in the rate of vaccinations” in the province.
He noted they had been able to deliver 15,000 vaccination shots in the past week. It is now the second highest number of shots per capita in the country, behind PEI.
If Saskatchewan were a country the pace of vaccines delivered would be in the top Ten, said Moe. He said they would continue to deliver vaccines as quickly and safely as possible as soon as they receive them from the federal government.
But Premier Moe acknowledged they were expecting a slowdown in vaccine shipments for the Pfizer vaccine, due to the disruption at Pfizer’s manufacturing facility in Europe.
In the coming week, only 2,925 more Pfizer vaccines would be delivered to Regina, Fort Qu’Appelle and North Battleford, and delivered to staff and residents in long term care and personal homes.
“Saskatchewan will run out of vaccines over the course of the next few days,” said Moe.
Moe adds they are now expecting over the next four weeks 17,500 new doses from Pfizer, which is well below the 37,000 they were expecting. Moe said they will need to revise their vaccine rollout over the next four weeks, and that they need the federal government to “pick up the pace” in their deliveries, and in their negotiations with Pfizer in particular.
Chief medical health officer Dr. Saqib Shahab also provided an update on numbers.
In terms of case numbers, daily news cases have decreased from 321 to 307, and the seven day average from 26.5 per 100,000 to 24.7.
Active case numbers have increased from 3,200 to 4,000 but Dr. Shahab noted that latter number is artificially inflated because of a number of cases still open after 21 days and will need to be adjusted.
Even after that adjustment, the active case rate is likely to remain the highest in Canada.
In other numbers daily active case rate has increased from 271 to 333, the test positive rate has decreased from 12.3 to 10.3 percent, and the daily testing rate per 100,000 has increased from 220 per 100,000 to 242.
The Premier and Dr. Shahab had no new restrictions to announce at the latest news conference. But Dr. Shahab said the current measures, if they are complied with universally, should be sufficient to bring case numbers down.
There were also several questions posed in the wake of a video that has come to light of a bar where social distancing was not being observed among patrons inside.
Dr. Shahab noted “no compliance with public health measures” was seen in those pictures. He also noted there had been outbreaks in funerals and wakes and recommended doing things virtually.
Premier Moe said he did not believe new measures were needed but for everyone to follow the measures that were in place.
did had some tough talk about the violations seen. “Enough is enough,” said Moe. “It’s time for us to start enforcing those that are not following those measures.”
Regarding enforcement, Moe said that was happening as we speak including investigations and financial penalties. Moe said he has asked public health to “not hesitate” to enforce the public health orders when people are flagrantly violating the rules, including bars and restaurants.
Moe added he has also asked Public Health to look into additional measures, up to and including closing facilities that are not following the laws in place.
