Ex-police will enforce COVID-19 rules, 'secure isolation site' planned, Sask. doctors told
CBC
Saskatchewan is recruiting former police officers to help enforce COVID-19 public health rules and is also planning a "secure isolation site" in North Battleford, according to an official with the Saskatchewan Health Authority.
The SHA hosted its latest COVID-19 physician town hall on Thursday. The biweekly forum is intended to allow doctors to share information and advice among themselves, but it also contains a wealth of up-to-date information on Saskatchewan's COVID-19 epidemiology and the health-care sector's efforts to curb the disease.
The town hall — a recording of which is typically posted online on Fridays — is also an opportunity for doctors to present their own advice to the Saskatchewan public, including a plea issued during Thursday's town hall for people to limit their contacts to one household during the Thanksgiving weekend.
"We are really concerned that Thanksgiving … is really going to be another very bad accelerant to an already bad situation," said Dr. Johnmark Opondo, a medical health officer with the Saskatchewan Health Authority, adding that the province is already deep into its fourth wave.
During his presentation, Opondo also shared news about the province's offensive strategy against COVID-19.
An enforcement team is being set up by the Ministry of Health to help public health inspectors regulate "masking non-compliance complaints" and "vaccination non-compliance complaints from businesses or the public," Opondo said.
The team is "a group of retired police officers who are really going to assist us, particularly where we are short in terms of public health inspectors," he said.