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[March 12, 2020] Saskatchewan confirmed its first case of COVID-19.   Following a meeting with the Saskatchewan Health Authority, Ministry of Health and other health care unions this morning we are gravely concerned.   We have learned that the highest level of personal protective equipment will not be made available to registered nurses and healthcare workers who may come into…

[March 11, 2020] Today, March 11, the World Health Organization has declared the novel coronavirus a pandemic. While Canada currently has 96 confirmed cases and one death – and as of 3:30 p.m. Saskatchewan has no cases – more than 121,000 people have been infected with the virus worldwide. As registered nurses we are neither nervous nor afraid – as a profession,…

The dispatches from the front lines of the COVID-19 outbreak in northern Italy are chilling.  "Nurses with tears in their eyes because we can't save everyone … Every ventilator becomes like gold." That was the message last week from Dr. Daniele Macchini, an Italian physician whose lengthy Facebook post was published in a local newspaper, translated into…

The coronavirus outbreak has been labelled a pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO). WHO chief Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the number of cases outside China had increased 13-fold over the past two weeks. He said he was "deeply concerned" by "alarming levels of inaction" over the virus. A pandemic is a disease that is spreading in multiple countries around…

Provincial health officials are still at work updating a 10-year-old strategy for combating a pandemic, as the NDP accuses the health ministry of having no plan if a COVID-19 outbreak strikes Saskatchewan. Opposition health critic Vicki Mowat argued that the ministry is simply “dusting off” an outdated document designed for the H1N1 virus. “This is a new virus,” she…