Sask. health official says with hospitals 'bursting at the seams,' it's time to mask up

A senior health official is urging voluntary mask use and other precautions as hospitals in Saskatoon and Regina continue to fill up.

"People need to stop looking to what government mandates are to say 'When should we be more cautious?' and start listening to the experts more," Dr. Cory Neudorf told CTV News.

"If you're deciding to go out on the roads and you see that it's a blizzard out there, you don't need government to tell you to keep your speed down or to decide not to travel."

Saskatoon and Regina are "bursting at the seams for hospitalizations," according to Neudorf, who is the interim senior medical health officer for the Saskatchewan Health Authority.

"We're pretty much at a high in terms of the number of COVID patients in hospital since the start of this pandemic and those rates are increasing," Neudorf said.

Neudorf estimates between 150 and 160 patients are in hospital due to COVID-19 and more than 200 admitted for other reasons are experiencing complications due to the illness.

"In Saskatoon and Regina the … hospital beds are always strained okay, we're always at or slightly over capacity," Neudorf said.

"But we're at 25-30 per cent above that, we're at like 130% occupancy in those areas now," he said.

"So those patients have to spill over into surgical beds they have to spill over into the ER in hallways. At the same time staffing is also down because staff are ill and so they are very stretched."

His comments come after a nearly 743 per cent increase in coronavirus remnants was detected in Saskatoon's wastewater.

"The time to use caution is now," said Neudorf , who attributes the rise in cases almost exclusively to the Omicron BA.2 subvariant.

"There's a lot of cases that either people don't know that they're ill and spreading or they're symptomatic but testing on their own and hopefully isolating if they've been found to be positive."

Neudorf said with the rise in cases, it's an "important time" for people to be wearing masks and suggests taking steps such as keeping gatherings small and limiting contacts.

"Use rapid tests before you go to any gathering and stay away from those gatherings obviously if it's a positive test," he said.

He said any symptoms at all are a reason to cancel plans — even with a negative test strip.

"This is the time when we try to try to interrupt the transmission as much as possible," Neudorf said.

"We could just see a real explosion of cases happen in the coming few weeks."

Neudorf also reiterated the advice that has long held true throughout the pandemic — vaccinations are critical to preventing severe outcomes.

"Get your booster if you're eligible. They're really helpful in preventing the likelihood of serious disease if you happen to get that breakthrough infection," Neudorf said.

"Reinfection is really likely with this Omicron strain. So even if you've had COVID before, after a few weeks you're probably susceptible again." 

--With files from Tyler Barrow