'We have been abandoned': Sask. doctor slams Moe's Quebec comparison
The Omicron COVID-19 variant has been spreading rapidly but Saskatchewan hospitals have not yet felt its full effects.
Over the past two weeks, cases in hospital and intensive care have nearly doubled, with the province reporting 1,000 cases nearly every day.
Cory Neudorf, interim senior medical health officer with the Saskatchewan Health Authority, says those numbers will keep climbing.
“We haven't seen the impact of this 1,000 plus cases a day on the system,” said Neudorf.
“Hospitalizations tend to lag cases by about two weeks or so and then ICU admissions lag cases by another week or two.”
Neudorf says the province could eventually lean on other provinces for help like it did during the Delta wave.
“It does seem that way. There is some inevitability to that increasing pressure that's going to come.”
According to Neudorf, Omicron is less severe than the Delta variant but spreads more rapidly. From the information, he has been provided it attacks people's nose and throat and the first part of the bronchus. It's less likely than Delta to cause pneumonia.
Neudorf says health experts are still learning more about Omicron and some people who contract it could have a different experience. He notes that the lower down the virus goes in a person's system, the worse it is for their body. It hits the unvaccinated harder.
Neudorf says the province should consider implementing gathering size limits or cancelling large events.
In a press release, Premier Scott Moe said new restrictions won’t be implemented.
"Saskatchewan's rate of COVID-19 related deaths in January is the lowest of any province and 90 per cent below the national rate of 4.8 per 100,000 population. It is worth noting that Quebec, with the most severe lockdown measures in Canada, has the highest COVID-19 fatality rate in Canada in January and one of the highest current rates in the world."
Infectious disease physician Dr. Alexander Wong says this isn't an accurate comparison.
"We're just a few weeks behind where they are — of course we're not as bad as they are. We're not in the same place in the Omicron wave as they are," he said.
In the release, Moe said his government "sees no clear evidence that lockdown measures have reduced hospitalizations, ICU admissions and deaths in other provinces."
"As a health care provider and as a frontline health care provider, and speaking for many of my colleagues, it is exhausting and completely disappointing to feel that we have been abandoned this way by our elected officials," said Wong.
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
Doctors say capital gains tax changes will jeopardize their retirement. Is that true?
The Canadian Medical Association asserts the Liberals' proposed changes to capital gains taxation will put doctors' retirement savings in jeopardy, but some financial experts insist incorporated professionals are not as doomed as they say they are.
Something in the water? Canadian family latest to spot elusive 'Loch Ness Monster'
For centuries, people have wondered what, if anything, might be lurking beneath the surface of Loch Ness in Scotland. When Canadian couple Parry Malm and Shannon Wiseman visited the Scottish highlands earlier this month with their two children, they didn’t expect to become part of the mystery.
Fair in Ontario, flurries in Labrador: Weather systems make for an erratic spring
It's no secret that spring can be a tumultuous time for Canadian weather, and as an unseasonably mild El Nino winter gives way to summer, there's bound to be a few swings in temperature that seem out of the ordinary. From Ontario to the Atlantic, though, this week is about to feel a little erratic.
What a urologist wants you to know about male infertility
When opposite sex couples are trying and failing to get pregnant, the attention often focuses on the woman. That’s not always the case.
He replaced Mickey Mantle. Now baseball's oldest living major leaguer is turning 100
The oldest living former major leaguer, Art Schallock turns 100 on Thursday and is being celebrated in the Bay Area and beyond as the milestone approaches.
'It was instant karma': Viral video captures failed theft attempt in Nanaimo, B.C.
Mounties in Nanaimo, B.C., say two late-night revellers are lucky their allegedly drunken antics weren't reported to police after security cameras captured the men trying to steal a heavy sign from a downtown business.
Bank of Canada officials split on when to start cutting interest rates
Members of the Bank of Canada's governing council were split on how long the central bank should wait before it starts cutting interest rates when they met earlier this month.
Quebec nurse had to clean up after husband's death in Montreal hospital
On a night she should have been mourning, a nurse from Quebec's Laurentians region says she was forced to clean up her husband after he died at a hospital in Montreal.
Northern Ont. lawyer who abandoned clients in child protection cases disbarred
A North Bay, Ont., lawyer who abandoned 15 clients – many of them child protection cases – has lost his licence to practise law.