Saskatchewan’s Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr Saqib Shahab sounded the proverbial Omicron alarm on Thursday afternoon, telling media that residents of the province should not see anyone outside their homes inside except to work or go to school.

“We have to do everything to blunt the tide. Now is not the time to come together. You have to do the basics, which is going to work and going to school. ‘have no contact with anyone outside of your home,’ Shahab said Thursday.

Shahab’s recommendation did not manifest itself in the form of new provincial health ordinances. He said on Thursday that any decision was up to the government.

Provincial ordinances do not restrict gatherings in public or private, despite model published by Shahab on December 21 that suggested policies reducing mixing of populations could limit the spread of the most transmissible variant.

This modeling turned out to be an underestimate. He predicted that daily cases would exceed 300 by January 20 without measures. As of Thursday, PCR-confirmed cases were 913 in the province, more than triple what the model had predicted as a high-end total.

These numbers do not include people who test positive in a self-administered rapid test but are not entered to confirm the result with a PCR test. The province recently recommended that asymptomatic people who have a positive rapid test stay home, assume they have COVID-19 and self-isolate, rather than having a PCR test to confirm it.

The December 21 model was based on the Omicron propagation having a doubling rate of 5.2 days. The Ontario Science Table released data more than a week ahead of the Saskatchewan model which suggested Omicron doubling time was only three days.

On December 23, Premier Scott Moe posted a video to social media suggesting the government may put collection limits in place in the coming days.

If “severe cases and hospitalizations remain low and manageable,” the government would not impose measures that “shut down operations, restrict businesses and deprive you of your personal freedoms,” he said.

At a press conference on December 30, he ruled out the possibility of setting limits.

“We have to learn to live with COVID,” Moe said. “We cannot lock down our communities and our community events and our businesses forever. “

Sask. officials “watch” other provinces

Moe and Shahab have always said they are monitoring other jurisdictions to see how Omicron is impacting healthcare. The difficulty in comparing other provinces to Saskatchewan is that all other provinces have some form of restriction on public or private gatherings.

For example, Alberta has limited the size of private gatherings. Quebec has a 9 p.m. curfew and indoor private gatherings limited to six people. Ontario has closed restaurants and indoor gyms and moved schools online until January 17.

Moe said the province will monitor hospitalizations and intensive care admissions. He has said in the past that his government makes decisions to protect the capacity of health care.

The Prime Minister said Omicron is “much more contagious” but appears to be “milder” than other strains of COVID-19.

There were 100 people in Saskatchewan hospitals with COVID-19 on Thursday, up from 130 a month ago. It is not yet clear how many new cases this week could require hospital care in a few weeks.

“A single poorly planned and unreported event can lead to thousands of cases which, once they impact unvaccinated, elderly, frail and immunocompromised people, will lead to hospitalizations,” Shahab said Thursday.

“Omicron is less harsh, but it’s by no means something we should ignore.”

When asked on Thursday for a response to Shahab’s recommendation not to congregate or mingle, the province responded with a statement.

“As the Prime Minister said, he is not ruling out further measures in the coming days if necessary.”

The province has not indicated what will trigger new measures. Moe did not address the media or the public this week.

Sask. return to school, while other provinces delay return

Back to school is another example of Saskatchewan zigzagging as other provinces zigzagging.

Saskatchewan was the only province to fully resume face-to-face classes this week.

The move was criticized by the Saskatchewan Teachers’ Federation (STF), the provincial opposition and some parents.

The STF has called for a two-day delay of the return so that divisions can make adjustments to try to limit the spread.

Opposition NPD said support to schools was insufficient and called for N95 masks for staff and students, improvements to ventilation in schools and holding vaccination clinics in schools.

Provincial Education Minister Dustin Duncan said on Wednesday the province “is working very closely” with the Saskatchewan School Boards Association (SSBA) on back to school.

“There was certainly no expressed interest in extending the vacation,” Duncan said.

But on Thursday, SSBA president Shawn Davidson was unaware that a delay was on the table.

“The government never told us that it was considering responding to this request. [to delay classes],” he said.

Davidson said the SSBA was not pushing for a delay back to schools, but wanted the government to restart its education response planning team. The team – made up of government ministries and education sector partners who have met regularly to discuss the response to the pandemic – disbanded in July.

Duncan said on Wednesday parents should expect “disruption”, with teachers who may need to isolate themselves and classrooms which may need to move online.

But he said schools should be “the first to open and the last to close.”

Davidson said school divisions need the government to handle contact tracing.

“School divisions don’t have the human resources or necessarily the expertise to really do all of this work,” Davidson said. “We’ve been helping it for a while now, but we really have capacity issues there.”

In the Regina Public School Division, 53 cases were reported in 25 K-12 schools as of Thursday.