Physicians decry relaxed restrictions after Health Authority presentation says teams are 'drowning'

A host of Saskatchewan physicians are airing their frustrations about the provincial government's change to isolation and close contact policies, despite the fact that the health authority called the current COVID-19 pandemic situation an "emergency." 

The move to relax restrictions came before the health authority's statement. 

On Thursday, when Saskatchewan announced that it would relax restrictions on close contacts and isolation for unvaccinated people it cited the change as a "transition to adapt to the challenges of the current Omicron wave," taking into account the increased transmissibility of the variant, the wide use of rapid testing and the effectiveness of vaccines. 

Previously, unvaccinated residents who tested positive had to self-isolate for 10 days. That has been reduced to five days. The province also no longer requires close contacts of positive COVID-19 cases to self-isolate.

These new rules took effect on Friday. 

Physicians puzzled by mixed messaging

Dr. Carla Holinaty, a family physician in Saskatoon, said she was shocked that the government decided to rein in policies when they knew the situation is bad in the province.

She said it's becoming "harder and harder" to present up-to-date information about COVID-19 "when the picture that's being painted by our government is very different from what the science and the data from our own province is saying."

Holinaty is worried it will affect the public's trust in their health care workers.

Last week, the provincial health authority modelling for COVID-19 anticipated record-breaking COVID-19 hospitalizations in February, but Holinaty said it seems like the government isn't listening.

She said it was a "moral blow" to health care workers who when the province reduced restrictions despite rising hospitalizations, ICU admissions and overcapacity at larger hospitals.

Dr. Jon Dean, an assistant professor of general internal medicine at the University of Saskatchewan, posted on Twitter that he is "reeling" from information provided at the physician town hall.

He compared information about this Omicron-driven wave being the "toughest wave in Saskatchewan yet," and "staffing pressures in all sectors," to a post from the Saskatchewan government outlining the changes to close contact and isolation policy.

"If [health care] professionals were in any other job, we would've left by now," he wrote. 

"WE are committed to Sask patients. But [the Saskatchewan government] isn't making it easy."

The Saskatchewan Health Authority said it's anticipating an overwhelming acute care surge and that the trajectory of hospitalizations is not sustainable. 

That's mixed with a "pandemic high" number of staff illness and absenteeism that is exhausting human resources. 

"Public health teams are currently drowning," one slide from the health authority reads.

'Government is giving up the fight against COVID'

Tamara Hinz, a Saskatoon psychiatrist, said the town hall produced a lot of "mental whiplash."

"On a day where it seems like our government is giving up the fight against COVID, our hospitals are once again expected to become overwhelmed, which will more than likely result in more rounds of cancelled procedures, therapies, and surgeries," she wrote in a post on Twitter. 

Receiving such different messaging from the provincial government and the SHA on the same day is a disconcerting and confusing feeling, the psychiatrist told CBC on Friday.

Hinz says she wasn't surprised by the seriousness of the information she and other physicians received from the SHA.

"We knew this was coming," she said. "Even if the proportion of patients infected with Omicron is lower in terms of needing hospital care, when you have vast numbers of infections — the way we are seeing — and very few mitigation measures in place, even a very small proportion of those patients ends up being a very large number when it comes to occupying hospital beds."

During a news conference on Thursday, provincial Health Minister Paul Merriman said, "The Omicron variant continues to spread resulting in high case numbers. However, a significantly lower number of cases are resulting in serious outcomes compared to previous waves."

The provincial COVID-19 dashboard shows the current 328 people in hospital with COVID-19 is shy of the current record of 356 hospitalizations in October 2021.

Saskatchewan once ranked among the lowest confirmed COVID-19 active case rates per capita in Canada, but it now ranks third with 1,050 active cases per 100,000 people, according to the Canadian government. Manitoba ranks first with more than 2,000.

Are we reaching an endemic?

Angela Rasmussen, a virologist at the University of Saskatchewan, said while she expects COVID-19 to become an endemic — when a virus is found within a region at a stable level, without rising and falling waves — Saskatchewan isn't there yet. 

"I just think it's really much too early to be relaxing precautions [of] isolation and on notification of close contacts," she told host Peter Mills on CBC's Morning Edition. 

Because Omicron is highly transmissible, the authorities really ought to be doing more to decrease transmission rather than relaxing restrictions that will "undoubtedly increase it," Rasmussen said.

While Omicron appears not to be as severe as other variants, it still has the potential to overwhelm the health-care system, she said.

LISTEN | Virologist Angela Rasmussen breaks down an endemic and why Saskatchewan isn't there yet:

She said the changes to close contact policy will be very concerning for people, especially parents whose kids won't know if there was a close contact in their school.

On Thursday, the province announced that parents no longer need to notify the school if their child tests positive for COVID-19. 

"I want to be very clear: I don't believe that we need to be taking these kinds of precautions forever and ever; this pandemic will end, it will get to a point where we can manage it," she said. 

"But that point is not right in the middle of a catastrophic, record-breaking surge."