Restaurants and other local businesses received news this week that the province will be keeping their current restrictions in place until at least Mar. 19. (File photo/battlefordsNOW staff)

By Martin Martinson, Josh Ryan

COVID restrictions continue

Community leaders react to extension of SHA guidelines

Feb 19, 2021 | 10:47 AM

Following the announcement this week that current COVID-19 health and safety guidelines would remain in effect until March 19, battlefordsNOW reached out to some of the local community leaders for their reaction to the provincial news.

Battleford mayor, Ames Leslie wasn’t surprised by the extension, though he thought there could be minor changes given their frequent communications with the government. He said the biggest priority from those talks has been about increasing the administration of vaccines.

“The main talking point has been, ‘get us vaccinated!’” Leslie said. “Whether it’s the federal government’s fault or the province’s fault, it doesn’t really matter. When you’re hearing the UK has vaccinated 50,000,000 or so people already and we’ve only vaccinated 250,000, something’s wrong here.”

Leslie said he’s heard from many residents who also feel they don’t have confidence in everything opening up until mass vaccination is a reality. He expects two weeks from now to be a good indicator of whether the province will make a change.

“If we get through this period and our cases trend downward and recoveries are higher than new cases, then maybe the government should look at opening,” he said.

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North Battleford mayor, David Gillan agreed that the decision to continue with the current restrictions appeared to be imminent, adding that it makes sense from his perspective with the context surrounding the recent downturn in numbers.

“My understanding is that the province is a bit concerned the cold weather may have made people hunker down a little bit more and may have possibly artificially reduced the seven-day average,” Gillan said.

“I think the province is being prudent and wanting to make sure that these numbers maintain the downward trend before deciding if they should lift restrictions and I think that’s a reasonable approach,” he added.

Chief Operating Officer with the Battlefords Chamber of Commerce, Linda Machniak commented that while there is “certainly a sense of frustration creeping in” for many local businesses, it remains important to all that the province move consistently towards reopening rather than try to rush things and only elongate the process.

“It is more of the same, but I think many of [the local businesses] appreciate that things don’t change herky-jerky and then have to change back again, as it’s important there’s a balanced approach,” she said.

Machniak added that while the process may be a slower one to this point, there remains optimism that restrictions will eventually begin to ease in the near future, so long as case numbers continue to drop across the province.

“Everyone is positive [optimistic] about the dropping numbers and that is a good sign, in the hopes that it continues to get better to the point where we do see some modifications when the next review period comes,” she said.

The Government of Saskatchewan announced Thursday afternoon 146 new cases of COVID-19, with a total of 1,516 cases considered active.

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CJNBNews@JPBG.ca

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