Saskatchewan COVID-19 modeling projects a long plateau in infection and hospitalizations due to increased mixing, according to slides from the Saskatchewan Health Authority physician town hall on Thursday night.
“Although we may be at the beginning of a downslope and COVID-19 in the community is trending down, the virus is stabilizing at relatively high levels,” the slides said.
“The place where we’re at is really not a good place. We’re still at relatively high levels,” said Dr. Johnmark Opondo, a medical health officer with the SHA.
Data from the town hall shows the more transmissible Omicron BA.2 subvariant remains dominant in the province, ranging from 58 per cent in Moose Jaw to 100 per cent in Saskatoon.
Anywhere from one quarter to one third of Saskatchewan residents have likely caught Omicron in the last two months, according to Dr. Cory Neudorf, the SHA’s interim senior medical health officer.
With the province’s booster dose rates the second lowest in the country, Neudorf said many people remain susceptible to the strain.
“Despite the fact that you may feel this is a less severe strain but very infectious, we need people to go out there and get their booster doses to bring this rate of transmission down to protect those who are more vulnerable,” he said.
“We need to see more mask wearing, more thoughtfulness around gathering sizes because we are still in a really high transmission time.”
There were 166 people hospitalized due to COVID-19 in the province as of Wednesday, which is an increase from the 160 patients a week prior. This is the fourth week in a row that hospitalizations due to COVID-19 have increased.
Another 231 patients have COVID-19, but are in hospital for other reasons. A total of 409 hospital patients have the virus with 12 of those cases under investigation. Twenty COVID-19 patients are in the ICU.
Premier Scott Moe said some patients are experiencing long-term symptoms, adding COVID-19 remains “very serious.”
“This hasn’t been an easy two years and I don’t think by any stretch anyone has indicated that COVID is over,” Moe said.
“We do need to utilize the tools we have to the best of our ability to keep not only ourselves safe but those around us safe.”
Those tools include vaccinations, booster doses and rapid test kits.
Saskatchewan’s healthcare system is facing “an unprecedented strain” when it comes to acute care beds, according to Neudorf.
Both Saskatoon and Regina’s acute care capacity is hovering around 130 per cent, he said, which is creating a backlog in other departments.
“People waiting for admission into acute care are now backing up in emergency and extending emergency wait times, creating a very unstable and unsafe environment in acute care,” Neudorf said.
Vaccinations and behaviors will help reduce the strain, he said.
Saskatchewan has the second lowest vaccine uptake among all provinces for a two-dose series and booster doses, according to SHA data.
As of April 23, 85.8 per cent of the population five years and older have received at least their first dose of COVID-19 vaccine and 80.8 per cent were fully vaccinated. Those percentages did not increase from the week before.
Of those 18 years and older, 51.8 per cent have received at least one booster vaccine, which is only a 0.1 per cent increase from the previous week.
People 50 years and older are now eligible to receive their fourth dose in Saskatchewan, if it has been four months since their previous booster.