We may soon see a Saskatchewan plan to re-open the economy.
After what appears to be rather promising numbers suggesting new COVID-19 cases have been reduced to low single-digits, Premier Scott Moe suggested that he would be able to move forward with a plan to 鈥渞e-open鈥� the economy.
However, he did so, ever so gently.
Moe didn鈥檛 offer many hints as to what exactly what that might look like. He likely can鈥檛 bceause it depend on a variety of factors 鈥� not the least of which would be recommendations from the Saskatchewan Health and the Saskatchewan Health Authority.
鈥淲e are only one outbreak away from interrupting those numbers,鈥� Moe said.
Instead, Moe said any re-opening would happen in a 鈥渕ethodical鈥� fashion. This聽 suggests that whatever happens might not be all that different than what we鈥檝e seen for the past month.
That isn鈥檛 exactly exciting news, but if this novel coronavirus has taught us anything, it should be patience.
The good news on the virus fight is that we do seem to winning here and flattening the curve.
On the day Moe made his announcement on April 13, there were only two new COVID-19 cases in the province that day (compared with 14 recoveries).聽 The day after announcing a 鈥渕ethodical鈥� plan to re-open the economy, Moe was rewarded with further good news of only one new case in Saskatchewan and nine recoveries.
At the time, it left this province with 110 鈥渁ctive鈥� cases, suggesting we are flattening the curve.
However, whether we continue in that right direction is anyone鈥檚 guess.
Manitoba had no new cases the day after Moe talked about 鈥渞e-opening鈥� the economy. However, in Alberta that day, there were 138 new cases 鈥� largely because of an outbreak of 128 new cases in Calgary.
We can be cautiously optimistic, but we can鈥檛 get too far ahead of ourselves. While Moe has vowed to up testing to 1,500 a day, we don鈥檛 have widespread testing or virus tracing (critical, when trying to determine who else may be infected) or a vaccine. Sadly, we don鈥檛 know nearly as much about this virus as we need to know.
That said, we also need to get on with our lives at some point andeven if that does not necessarily mean 鈥済etting back to normal鈥�.
鈥淭here is no magic switch that we can flip that sends everything back to normal overnight,鈥� Moe said.
We obviously can鈥檛 go from night to day or from winter to summer. In life, there are always transitions like dawn and spring.
But in that vein, we need to recognize that what drives the economy of a still rural-based economy are critical industries that have, largely, always practiced social distancing by their nature.
Farming and spring seeding are largely that. So is oil, gas and 鈥� to a large extent 鈥� potash mining.
Much praised 鈥� and rightly so 鈥� is being heaped these days on nurses, doctors and other health care workers as essential services. But consider for a moment how essential food production is right now. Consider that our crops and potash mean to tropical island/ resort destinations that don鈥檛 necessarily grow all of their own food and don鈥檛 have the tourism dollars but still need what we produce.
Sure, faming is not necessarily inhibited by current social distancing regulations, anyway. The more important point, however, is really that we do need to think about 鈥渕ethodically鈥� moving forward with 鈥渁 plan鈥� to re-open the economy.
If we can find a way to allow high-traffic grocery stores to remain open, can we not do the same thing for lower volume retail or even service sector business if we are seeing evidence of reduced transmissions?
We can move forward. We need to move forward.
Murray Mandryk has been covering provincial politics since 1983.
