Premier Scott Moe announced on Wednesday the province has recorded its sixth death related to COVID-19. It’s the second this week.
The sixth death related to the virus was a resident in their 80s from the far north region who died in long-term care.
Moe also said of the 17 new cases announced on Wednesday, 16 are cases in the north or far north.
According to a media release sent out by the province, there has been a cluster of cases in Lloydminster linked to the Lloydminster hospital which identified 13 cases, including five health care workers and eight patients.
Moe said the Saskatchewan Health Authority (SHA) is in the process of deploying 50 to 100 additional staff and the necessary materials to do aggressive surge testing and contact tracing in the affected regions.
“Testing will focus on long-term care facility staff as well as residents, health centre staff as well as patients, drive through testing availability, door-to-door testing and anyone else who would like to be tested in the community of La Loche will be tested,” said Moe.
“We need to identify positive cases as quickly as possible when we have outbreaks such as these,” he added.
Moe said as a result of the two outbreaks, phase one of the Re-Open Saskatchewan Plan will not begin in the communities of La Loche or Lloydminster.
“We will still proceed with phase one of the Re-Open Saskatchewan Plan throughout the rest of the province,” said Moe.
“I want to remind everyone that the first phase of the Re-Open Saskatchewan Plan is a very limited phase. That is the only change we are going to see in this province in the near term,” he added.
Moe said there are no current plans to further restrict travel or add any interprovincial travelling restrictions as of yet.
“If it continues to grow, that may be a conversation that we may have,” said Moe.
Chief medical health officer Dr. Saqib Shahab said for the next while people will have to continue live and work in the new normal amid COVID-19.
“With the current outbreaks in Lloydminster and La Loche, the unfortunate two deaths that we’ve had in a long-term care setting, are all stark reminders that if we let our guard down, COVID-19 comes back very quickly,” said Shahab.
Moe said the province feels confident with continuing on with the Re-Open Saskatchewan Plan along with continuing to keep the curve flat in Saskatchewan although there have been two additional outbreaks after a few weeks of positive drops in numbers.
“We have been able to flatten the curve across the province so we’re confident that we can do so in these two isolated outbreaks,” said Moe.
“We’re working very hard to ensure that is the case,” he added.
