Regina is back under some of the strictest public-health measures seen in the province since last spring over concerns about a rising spread of more infectious COVID-19 variants.
Premier Scott Moe announced Tuesday that a ban on household guests, which was lifted provincewide two weeks ago, is immediately back in place in Regina and surrounding communities.
Starting Sunday, restaurants and bars in the city will not be allowed to serve customers and will have to switch to takeout or delivery.
Event venues like community halls, movie theatres, museums, libraries and “any non-essential indoor locations” also won’t be able to operate as of Sunday.
“The challenge we have is the concentration of variants in Regina is much, much higher,” Premier Scott Moe said at a news conference.
“It will be higher eventually in other areas of the province and we want to delay that as long as possible so that we can get the vaccines out to everyone.”
COVID-19 is caused by a virus called SARS-CoV-2, and as it spread around the world, it mutated into new forms that are more quickly and easily transmitted through small water droplets in the air. Canadian health officials are most worried about variants that can slip past human immune systems because of a different shape in the spiky protein that latches onto our cells. The bigger fear is that future mutations could be vaccine-resistant, which would make it necessary to tweak existing drugs or develop a new “multivalent” vaccine that works against many types, which could take months or years.
Not all variants are considered equal threats: Only those proven to be more contagious or resistant to physical-distancing measures are considered by the World Health Organization to be “variants of concern.” Five of these been found in Canada so far. The WHO refers to them by a sequence of letters and numbers known as Pango nomenclature, but in May of 2021, it also assigned them Greek letters that experts felt would be easier to remember.
ALPHA (B.1.1.7)
- Country of origin: Britain
- Traits: Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines are still mostly effective against it, studies suggest, but for full protection, the booster is essential: With only a first dose, the effectiveness is only about 66 per cent.
- Spread in Canada: First detected in Ontario’s Durham Region in December. It is now Canada’s most common variant type. Every province has had at least one case; Ontario, Quebec and the western provinces have had thousands.
BETA (B.1.351)
- Country of origin: South Africa
- Traits: Some vaccines (including Pfizer’s and Oxford-AstraZeneca’s) appear to be less effective but researchers are still trying to learn more and make sure future versions of their drugs can be modified to fight it.
- Spread in Canada: First case recorded in Mississauga in February. All but a few provinces have had at least one case, but nowhere near as many as B.1.1.7.
GAMMA (P.1)
- Country of origin: Brazil
- Traits: Potentially able to reinfect people who’ve recovered from COVID-19.
- Spread in Canada: B.C. has had hundreds of cases, the largest known concentration of P.1 outside Brazil. More outbreaks have been detected in Ontario and the Prairies.
DELTA (B.1.617 AND B.1.617.2)
- Country of origin: India
- Traits: Spreads more easily. Single-dosed people are less protected against it than those with both vaccine doses.
- Spread in Canada: All but a few provinces have recorded cases, but B.C.’s total has been the largest so far.
LAMBDA (C.37)
- Country of origin: Peru
- Traits: Spreads more easily. Health officials had been monitoring it since last August, but the WHO only designated it a variant of concern in June of 2021.
- Spread in Canada: A handful of travel-related cases were first detected in early July.
If I’m sick, how do I know whether I have a variant?
Health officials need to genetically sequence test samples to see whether it’s the regular virus or a variant, and not everyone’s sample will get screened. It’s safe to assume that, whatever the official variant tallies are in your province, the real numbers are higher. But for your purposes, it doesn’t matter whether you contract a variant or not: Act as though you’re highly contagious, and that you have been since before your symptoms appeared (remember, COVID-19 can be spread asymptomatically). Self-isolate for two weeks. If you have the COVID Alert app, use it to report your test result so others who may have been exposed to you will know to take precautions.
Need more answers? Email audience@globeandmail.com
Highway signs will soon display an advisory for residents to avoid travelling in and out of Regina if it’s not for work or medical appointments.
The province is also advising anyone who can work from home to do so.
In and around the capital is where 763 of Saskatchewan’s 891 identified variant cases have been located. The area also had 91 of the 150 new COVID-19 infections reported Tuesday.
Saskatchewan’s overall average of new daily cases was at 158, up from 138 a week ago.
Most of the confirmed cases in the province have been of the mutation first detected in the United Kingdom, known as B.1.1.7, which officials believe has taken hold as the dominant strain in the Regina area.
Two school divisions in Regina announced last week that students will soon be moving to online learning because of the presence of variants.
The new measures come after Moe and his health minister spent weeks rejecting calls from doctors to tighten up rules after variants were detected in the province.
Saskatchewan has one of highest rates of active cases per capita in Canada.
While infections have dropped elsewhere in the province, Saskatchewan’s chief medical health officer noted they’re increasing in the Regina region.
Dr. Saqib Shahab urged people to stay home in hopes they can reverse the rise in cases over two to four weeks.
The tougher rules will be in place until at least April 5. But Moe said it’s “very likely” they could be extended.
“They’re here to be in place for as short of (a) period as possible until we can start to just nudge the numbers down and, ultimately, start to forecast that the hospitalizations would start to drop here in Regina.”
Earlier Tuesday, the Opposition NDP called on the Saskatchewan Party government to introduce a “circuit-breaker” in Regina to bring down cases and prevent the city’s two hospitals from being overwhelmed by COVID-19 patients.
The Saskatchewan Health Authority said that as of Monday, intensive care units at the Regina General Hospital and Pasqua Hospital were more than 70 per cent full.
At the General Hospital, 15 of its 28 ICU beds were in use by COVID-19 patients. Health officials said there were 152 people in hospitals across the province on Tuesday, up from 138 a week earlier.
Shahab presented modelling that shows, without interventions, there could be 120 people in the province’s intensive care units.
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