Sarah Mills: A little wave on the road can make somebody's day
Many Saskatchewan drivers give each other a little wave when they pass on the roads or highways, but Sarah Mills says sh...
While new COVID measures were announced in Saskatchewan on Thursday, there are still some issues the head of the teachers’ union would like to see addressed.
Patrick Maze, the president of the Saskatchewan Teachers’ Federation, said he’s concerned about contact tracing and isolation.
He believes students who are identified as close contacts to someone who later tests positive should have to isolate.
“So if a student is exposed at home, they have to isolate at home. If they’re exposed at a shopping mall or anywhere outside of a school, they have to isolate at home. For some reason, if they’re exposed at school, then they can continue to go to school each day. It just seems illogical,” he said before the latest round of restrictions was announced.
He’s also worried the province’s scaled-back contact tracing is contributing to the spread of the virus in schools.
“Right now, we have people who are getting tested and turning out positive, and they’re just being told, ‘Get ahold of anybody you’ve been in touch with for the last little while and let them know that they should get tested.’ That’s obviously not a very effective system,” he said.
Instead, he’d rather have the province dedicate more resources to contact tracing.
That being said, he understands the health-care system is strained. He believes it’s impossible for staff at schools to help with contact tracing for students.
“Our schools are at capacity, but at the same point, we also recognize that health is at capacity as well,” he said. “It’s kind of a perfect storm here that government has created by lax rules that has let this get out of control.”
Schools are not immune to the continued surge of COVID cases in the province.
This week, there were COVID cases reported at 10 different Regina schools, as well as on two school buses.
As of Thursday, about 22 per cent of Saskatchewan’s new cases were being reported in kids under 12 — those who currently aren’t eligible to receive a vaccine.
