{"id":5457,"date":"2024-04-23T07:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-04-23T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stillcoviding.ca\/en\/?p=5457"},"modified":"2024-04-23T10:17:37","modified_gmt":"2024-04-23T14:17:37","slug":"sask-officials-knew-covid-19-was-spreading-at-an-exponential-rate-in-2021-but-refused-restrictions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stillcoviding.ca\/en\/news\/sask-officials-knew-covid-19-was-spreading-at-an-exponential-rate-in-2021-but-refused-restrictions\/","title":{"rendered":"Sask. officials knew COVID-19 was spreading at an &#8216;exponential&#8217; rate in 2021, but refused restrictions"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>This story is a collaboration between the <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/theijf.org\" lang=\"en\" rel=\"noopener\">Investigative Journalism Foundation<\/a> and CBC Saskatchewan.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Newly obtained internal data shows the Saskatchewan government knew COVID-19 was spreading at an \u201cexponential\u201d rate in the fall of 2021, providing new insight into what officials knew before a devastating COVID-19 wave hit the province.<\/p>\n<p>The Investigative Journalism Foundation (IJF) and the CBC have obtained a six-page briefing presented to top officials at Saskatchewan\u2019s Ministry of Health in September 2021, days before the provincial government publicly declined to re-introduce measures doctors said were urgently needed to stop the spread of the virus. <\/p>\n<p>The presentation, dated Sept.&nbsp;3, 2021, came before a wave of COVID-19 infections that killed hundreds and nearly overwhelmed the province\u2019s health system.<\/p>\n<p>The government would later have to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbc.ca\/news\/canada\/saskatchewan\/saskatchewan-airlift-ontario-cost-1.6288492\" target=\"_blank\" lang=\"en\" rel=\"noopener\">airlift roughly a quarter of its most critically sick patients<\/a> to Ontario because there were not enough doctors and medical staff to care for them in Saskatchewan.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p><em>This story is a collaboration between the <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/theijf.org\" lang=\"en\" rel=\"noopener\">Investigative Journalism Foundation<\/a> and CBC Saskatchewan.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Newly obtained internal data shows the Saskatchewan government knew COVID-19 was spreading at an \u201cexponential\u201d rate in the fall of 2021, providing new insight into what officials knew before a devastating COVID-19 wave hit the province.<\/p>\n<p>The Investigative Journalism Foundation (IJF) and the CBC have obtained a six-page briefing presented to top officials at Saskatchewan\u2019s Ministry of Health in September 2021, days before the provincial government publicly declined to re-introduce measures doctors said were urgently needed to stop the spread of the virus. <\/p>\n<p>The presentation, dated Sept.&nbsp;3, 2021, came before a wave of COVID-19 infections that killed hundreds and nearly overwhelmed the province\u2019s health system.<\/p>\n<p>The government would later have to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbc.ca\/news\/canada\/saskatchewan\/saskatchewan-airlift-ontario-cost-1.6288492\" target=\"_blank\" lang=\"en\" rel=\"noopener\">airlift roughly a quarter of its most critically sick patients<\/a> to Ontario because there were not enough doctors and medical staff to care for them in Saskatchewan.<\/p>\n<div class=\"more-link-wrapper\"><a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/stillcoviding.ca\/en\/news\/sask-officials-knew-covid-19-was-spreading-at-an-exponential-rate-in-2021-but-refused-restrictions\/\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Sask. officials knew COVID-19 was spreading at an &#8216;exponential&#8217; rate in 2021, but refused restrictions<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[96,18,361,119,97,309,14,362,1080],"class_list":["post-5457","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-canada","tag-covid-19","tag-data-suppression","tag-ontario","tag-pandemic-response","tag-pro-virus-policies","tag-sars-cov-2","tag-saskatchewan","tag-saskatchewan-government","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stillcoviding.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5457","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stillcoviding.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stillcoviding.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stillcoviding.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stillcoviding.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5457"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/stillcoviding.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5457\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5459,"href":"https:\/\/stillcoviding.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5457\/revisions\/5459"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stillcoviding.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5457"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stillcoviding.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5457"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stillcoviding.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5457"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}