SHA preparing for possible post-Christmas surge; vaccinations remain on track

While vaccines are here and the light at the end of the tunnel is growing brighter, the Saskatchewan Health Authority is still preparing for additional pressures due to COVID-19.

As of Monday, there were 180 people in hospital in the province, with 35 in the intensive care units — more than 30 per cent of the province’s ICU capacity.

“In the worst-case scenario, if the numbers continue to go up, what happens is the care model has to change,” SHA CEO Scott Livingstone told Gormley on Monday.

“We’ve seen this in other jurisdictions. Instead of a one-on-one model, we might have to use a model that looks a little different to be able to support care. But we’re not there now. We’re still using our regular model of care and expanding as we need to.”

And Livingstone said health officials are prepared for a surge of cases following Christmas.

“We’re hoping for the best with respect to adherence to public health orders but we know that has challenged lots of folks throughout the pandemic. So we are expecting to see some increased numbers but we won’t see them for a couple of weeks — 10 to 14 days,” Livingstone said.

He said the SHA has been working for months to ensure health-care workers have the resources needed to provide care during surges, including creating more capacity for COVID care.

“(We are) making sure that at the end of the day we have the capacity to test and contact trace and admit where we need to admit. Not every single person is required admission,” Livingstone said.

“One of the challenges that we are facing now, which is different than the early stages of the pandemic, is we’re not seeing the travel-related cases or those big, large communal living cases. It’s (now) that widespread community-based transmission.”

Livingstone also shared that as of now, the SHA feels comfortable with the number of ventilators it has available.

“Early on across the globe there was concerns about ventilator access. We’re comfortable with where we are with our ventilators. Anything could happen but we would have to see hundreds of people on ventilators to even test the capacity we have in the province,” Livingstone said.

Livingstone said things continue to remain on track when it comes to vaccinations in the province. Phase 1 is continuing this week, with Prince Albert and areas in the far north receiving vaccines.

“As long as vaccines continue to flow — and that doesn’t look like it’s going to be a problem at least with Moderna and Pfizer, with more vaccines coming online in 2021 — we’ll hopefully be able to expand our program,” Livingstone said.

Due to the temperatures at which the vaccines need to be kept, Livingstone said there are some logistics that tie the SHA’s hands.

“Unless there are changes to the Pfizer and Moderna transport and storage (process), and we will learn more as we do more with these vaccines worldwide, we will really be bound,” he said. “The Moderna one has less restrictions so that’s one we’re getting outside the bigger centres as quickly as we can.”