SASKATOON -- C3 Church is allowed to hold in-person services, but is choosing to only host virtual services for the next few weeks.
Pastor Brock Fehr believes it’s the right move as COVID-19 cases climb in Saskatchewan.
“Being away from people is so hard, but we’re all just trying to care for people and care for our community the best we can — and this is what we felt was right to do,” Fehr said.
The church will be streaming its services on YouTube for four weeks. After that, depending on transmission rates, C3 will continue online or move to in-person services with physical distancing and masks.
On Friday, the 33rd person in Saskatchewan died from COVID-19 and the province reported 153 new cases.
With the increase of cases, the owners of City Perks Coffeehouse and Sparrow Coffee announced they’re pausing dine-in services.
“Right now, this is likely the most difficult decision from a ‘business’ perspective to make, yet from a caring and compassionate human being, it feels right,” the owners wrote in an Instagram post.
Virologist Dr. Jason Kindrachuk said while it’s good to see businesses stepping up to do their part, cutting COVID-19 case numbers has to be a team effort.
“The unfortunate thing with this virus is that we have to see the bulk of the population doing these measures to see an effect,” the infectious disease expert said.
According to Kindrachuk, now is the time for people to take the virus seriously.
“It takes the two week period to get the data and case numbers back to figure out whether or not what we’re doing is having an effect. So if we want to change things, as we move closer to the holidays, now is the time we really have to put in as much effort as possible to change things around,” he said.
On Thursday, the province released new modelling numbers that paint a stark picture of the future.
According to the data, in a best-case scenario, Saskatchewan would nearly double COVID-19 cases in the next six months.
