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People all across Saskatchewan are holed up in their living rooms and basements, watching the active COVID-19 cases in the province tick slowly down, and wondering when things are going to get back to normal.
On Thursday morning, Premier Scott Moe is expected to unveil what he calls Re-Open Saskatchewan. It’s the plan on how to restart the province’s economy.
Moe has been teasing the plan for more than a week, though he hasn’t given away much on specifics.
“We are not talking about kicking the economy wide open (and) we are not talking about going back to doing business as we did before the pandemic hit. What we are talking about is expanding the list of allowable businesses, of which there already are many in our province and our communities,” Moe said on Wednesday of last week.
He said those businesses, when they’re able to open, will be expected to abide by all the cleaning and distancing measures that currently open businesses have to follow.
In his provincial address Wednesday night, Moe said the plan will have five phases and he will reveal a couple of dates in May when the first could start.
Moe has acknowledged that COVID-19 is going to be around for a while.
“What we are looking to do is to open up some segments of our economy, keep the residents of this province safe, but open up some segments of the economy so we can have a functioning economy here in the province of Saskatchewan and have a point of where we can actually start to recover economically from,” he said.
Moe said his team has been specifically looking for sectors that would be low risk for people’s safety.
Things like travel restrictions and restrictions around seniors’ residences won’t be relaxed for many months, or until a vaccine is found, according to Moe. He also said that maximum numbers for gatherings will only be increased slowly if at all, which means things like festivals and sporting events are out.
“The mass gatherings that we were looking at were capped at 10 today. If we were to expand that, it wouldn’t be to the 10,000 or 15,000 that would allow for all those types of sporting events to go on into the foreseeable future, and that would be months,” said Moe.
Moe has said multiple times that the plan’s implementation will be slow and methodical. On Monday of last week, he explained that the government may relax a few restrictions, then wait a few weeks and monitor case numbers closely.
“If they do not change or change very little then we would look at a second phase and then again sit and test and contact trace and see what impact that has on our economy,” he said.
Moe said testing and contact tracing will be integral to the plan as they will allow the province to decide whether the plan is working. On Tuesday, the Saskatchewan Health Authority said it’s working on a plan to expand testing beyond just people with COVID-19 symptoms who seek it out.
However, Moe did caution that all these plans are contingent on the province’s numbers remaining low. He warned one outbreak could pull everything off track
The plan’s reveal will be carried live on 980 CJME and 650 CKOM at 10:30 a.m.