Infectious disease doctor questions lack of additional COVID-19 measures

While cases of COVID-19 and variants of concern rise, an infectious disease physician is wondering what the next steps are, and what it will take before they’re implemented.

“Obviously here in Regina, the decision was made to lock down and so the severity of the situation was deemed to be at a point where something needed to be done,” said Dr. Alex Wong.

“I’m not completely certain with respect to our policymakers and politicians in regards to how they necessarily make that call.”

Speaking to the Greg Morgan Morning Show on Wednesday, Wong said modelling data suggests the status quo is unsustainable.

“We’re going to have huge case numbers again and that’s going to place a lot of stress and threaten our health-care capacity. And it’s going to lead to a lot of excess deaths,” he said.

The day before, Saskatchewan’s chief medical health officer said Moose Jaw is on “red alert,” with 95 active cases. The south-central zone, which includes that city, had 118 cases of variants of concern as of Tuesday.

In the neighbouring Regina zone, there are more than 1,000 active cases and 1,298 variants of concern have been detected.

No new public health orders were issued during a news conference with Premier Scott Moe and Dr. Saqib Shahab on Tuesday.

Wong pointed out that elsewhere in the world, rules are beginning to tighten. British Columbia is introducing more measures and France appears to be headed toward a national lockdown for a third time.

“It’s hard again to know with certainty what the right thing to do is, but we need to look very closely at what was happening around the rest of the world and in Canada to decide what to do next,” Wong said.