Regina Mayor Michael Fougere is urging restraint as reports of large gatherings and use of play structures over the weekend emerged Monday.
“I’d just hate to see us lose momentum by people thinking it’s OK now to be more relaxed, go out in groups and congregate at recreation facilities and play structures because that is not what we should be doing,” Fougere said in an interview Monday afternoon. “I’m asking people to please don’t undo the good work.”
The mayor said he received one email and heard second- and third-hand of a few other incidents where residents engaged in activities contrary to the province’s current public health orders. It’s “disappointing” he said, if that is happening, adding the nice weather may have had something to do with it.
The reports come days after the province announced its Re-Open Saskatchewan Plan and spoke of expanding contact with other households while still following physical distancing requirements where possible. During a news conference Thursday, Premier Scott Moe noted he hadn’t seen his son for six weeks and would like to have a barbecue with him.
“And I think we will,” he said at the time.
While the weather may have tempted some people to congregate over the weekend, NDP Leader Ryan Meili pointed to the premier’s comments as a contributing factor.
“Some of the language that came out at the end of last week from the premier … really sort of gave the impression that it was open season to go visit friends and family,” he said Monday morning. “Whether that was the intention or not, that appears to be the effect.”
Moe reiterated Monday afternoon that residents have the opportunity to cautiously and carefully reconnect with people that are important to us, preferably outside where a two-metre distance can be maintained.
“If we push this too far, into a large gathering for example, which I never did indicate and will not indicate at this point in time is safe in any way, that would be a misinterpretation of what I said,” he said. “It’s unfortunate that the leader of the Opposition would portray them that way.”
This is on us, he added, to conduct ourselves with a “very high degree of personal responsibility” when it comes to physical distancing.
Saskatchewan’s chief medical health officer Dr. Saqib Shahab noted that while residents can begin to form what he called virtual households, all public health orders including a maximum on the number of people allowed at public gatherings and social distancing measures remains in place through all phases of the Re-Open plan.
Tracy Zambory, president of the Saskatchewan Union of Nurses, says what happened over the weekend is exactly what she and her members were afraid would happen once Saskatchewan started to talk about reopening.
“We were very concerned that as soon as people started seeing and hearing things that they were going to start getting overly comfortable and withdrawing from the very things that have kept us safe thus far,” she said. “And that’s what we see is happening.”
Over the weekend she heard from many people, nurses and concerned members of the public from across the province reporting what looked like people “throwing caution to the wind” when it comes to rules around social distancing including backyard barbecues with more than 10 people (the current maximum number allowed for public gatherings), stores jam-packed like it was Boxing Day, and couples and groups of adults shopping together.
“It puts people who are essential workers, it puts registered nurses, at a real risk. We hear, ‘Oh well, we haven’t got all that many cases in Saskatchewan and we’re doing so well,’ but if we continue on this downward pathway, we won’t continue to do well,” said Zambory.
“We need to maintain that social distancing,” she said. “It was so stepped away from across the province that we as registered nurses are begging people, please follow the rules, please social distance.”
