The provincial government announced Thursday the public health orders aimed at curbing the spread of COVID-19 will be extended until January 31st. The announcement was made during a press conference with Premier Scott Moe and Chief Medical Health Officer Dr. Saqib Shahab.  

The current public health orders call for mandatory masking in all indoor public spaces in Saskatchewan, and proof of vaccination or negative test requirements for public access to a number of establishments, businesses and event venues.  

While the extension is until the end of January, Premier Scott Moe explained this doesn’t necessarily mean the orders will be lifted on that day. 

“It may be on until the end of March 2022,” Moe stated. “We will reassess as we get into the last few weeks of January.” 

While the public health orders have been extended, Moe did say this year’s holiday season will be very different than last year, when more restrictive orders were in place that limited the size of gatherings. 

“If you look back on year ago today, virtually no one in our province was vaccinated,” Moe added. “If you look at where we are at today, nearly 900,000 Saskatchewan residents have been vaccinated, so a markedly different situation and markedly different baseline.” 

During the press conference Thursday morning, Moe also stated that the government should have acted earlier in implementing the current public health orders, which he credited with increasing vaccine uptake in the province, with more than 200,000 doses being administered since September.  

“In hindsight, that is something that I regret,” Moe said. “But most certainly, as we move forward, you’re seeing these very effective measures remain in place. And these very effective measures we would expect will prove to be just as effective as we find our way into the holiday season with these public health measures, plus a number of another initiatives that we just simply didn’t have in place last year.” 

In recent weeks, the number of cases of COVID-19 in the province have started to decline. Active cases have fallen from 2,538 on October 25th to 993 on Thursday. Hospitalizations due to COVID-19 have also declined by 50 percent.  

“We really hope that if we stay the course over December and January, with the extension of these measures, we’ll have a safe happy holiday season,” stated Dr. Shahab. “We will enjoy everything we are enjoying right now — concerts, shows, exhibitions, getting together, going to restaurants — in a safer manner, and keep the numbers low and allow the health system to further show a complete recovery.”