Sask. announces two new COVID-19 cases, new guidelines for places of worship

With the number of active COVID-19 cases in Saskatchewan remaining at 21, the provincial government announced Thursday updated guidelines for places of worship and graduation ceremonies.

After announcing two new cases — one in Saskatoon and one in the far north — and two more recoveries, the province revealed it was increasing the limit on the number of people who can attend worship services.

It’s now one-third of the seating capacity of the facility to a maximum of 150 people, whichever is less. However, public health measures and guidelines already suggested still must be followed.

For these events, the 150 people must be cohorted into groups of 30, with the people in those groups physically distanced, and the groups separated more-so from each other.

“We feel this will allow events to happen in a way that is safe, or safer. As safe as can be given our current low transmission, but not run the same risks as a large gathering without some of these considerations,” said Chief Medical Health Officer, Dr. Saqib Shahab.

The guidelines apply to all services, including celebrations of life, weddings and outdoor ceremonies. However it appears receptions still won’t be allowed.

“At this point (a gathering) can’t include 150 people mingling and food at a buffet and a dance maybe, unfortunately we aren’t confident that we can see that happening at this point.”

The government also said it was continuing to review the public health guidelines in hopes of helping graduates and their families celebrate the milestone.

Among the options suggested were: Virtual ceremonies, which public health officials recommend; drive-in events, which would need to follow guidelines previously set out for drive-in movies and drive-in church services; and, outdoor ceremonies.

The latter events would be permitted with a maximum of 30 graduates per class and an overall attendance of 150 people, including the graduates, their guests and school staff members.

If a school has more than that number of graduates, multiple ceremonies would be required.

Ceremonies must comply with the public health measures already in place.

Deputy Premier Gord Wyant was asked why weddings and funerals would be allowed 150 people indoors, but the relaxed guidelines aren’t being extended to any other events.

“So there are guidelines in place with respect to how religious ceremonies will be conducted. So, to that extent I don’t think that they’re being discriminatory to any one particular group, but I do think that as we move forward, guidelines will be reviewed by Dr. Shahab and his public health officials to determine whether or not we need to move forward to change any of those particular rules around any of those events,” said Wyant.

The government also announced new guidelines for the first stage of Phase 4 of the Re-Open Saskatchewan plan, involving child and youth day camps, outdoor pools and splash pads, and outdoor sports and activities.

A target date for the first stage is to be announced next week.

Shahab said they want to make sure the guidelines promote safety in the activities and the people who enable that need some time.

“Our desire is to go as early as we can feasibly go while having this buffer between Phase 3, some additional activities announced today, which are going to start on Friday, and having a bit of a buffer for both some monitoring of how things are going and also time to get outdoor and indoor sports and activities open up in a slightly different and slightly more structured way”

Those guidelines can be found in the plan shown below.

The second stage of Phase 4 will involve the reopening of indoor pools, indoor rinks, libraries, museums, galleries, movie theatres, casinos and bingo halls. The start date for that phase isn’t known.

A look at the numbers

The two new cases increase the provincial total so far to 660. There have been 626 recoveries to date.

Thirteen Saskatchewan residents have died due to complications from the virus.

There is one person in intensive care in Saskatoon.

Of the total number of cases, 398 are community contacts, 145 are travellers, 79 don’t have a known exposure, and 38 are being investigated by local public health.

There have been 262 cases in the far north, 176 from the Saskatoon area, 112 in the north, 80 from the Regina area, 18 in the south and 12 from the central region.

So far, 98 cases have involved people 19 years of age and under. There have been 234 cases in the 20-to-39 age range, 200 between the ages of 40 and 59, 110 in the 60-to-79 range, and 18 among people 80 or over.

There were 737 tests done Wednesday, hiking the total in the province to date to 53,853.