COVID-19. (Canadian Press file photo).

By Mat Barrett

R.M. of Star City Cases

Majority of province’s 50 new COVID-19 cases linked to Hutterite colony in R.M. of Star City

Jul 29, 2020 | 5:17 PM

Saskatchewan announced 50 new cases of COVID-19 in the province Wednesday. Forty-four of them were said to be in the province’s North region which includes Melfort, Tisdale, Nipawin, several municipalities and a few Hutterite communities.

Initial communications about the location of the large outbreak were confusing. In a Facebook post separate from the emailed media release, the province localized those 44 northern cases to a “communal living setting in the R.M. of Star City”.

This post was the first made by the province today on their latest COVID-19 update. The R.M. mention was removed but could still be seen in the edit history of the post. (Facebook/Aaron Schulze)

However, a short time later, that post was edited to remove the R.M. mention but the original post could still be seen in the post’s edit history. Then, prior to the province’s daily press briefing, the original post was deleted and replaced with a new post that did not mention the localized cases. The new post stated the 44 cases were in the North and related to a “communal living setting.”

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The province’s Chief Medical Health Officer Saqib Shahab then addressed the 44 cases in his opening comments at the briefing.

“We are reporting 50 new cases of COVID-19 in Saskatchewan, of which 44 were in a communal living setting in the R.M. of Star City east of Melfort,” he said.

Premier Scott Moe also confirmed in his opening statement that the cases were in a Hutterite colony, but he didn’t say which one.

The province did not give a reason for the confusion on Facebook.

With numerous Hutterite communities in the province affected by COVID-19, the government is working with the Hutterian Safety Council to control the outbreaks. Moe said most communities are cooperating, but some are not.

“They are somewhat resistant to allowing testing. Some are telling us they are not willing to change some of their communal practices such as eating and worshiping together,” he said, noting the infection rate in Hutterite communities is over five per-cent right now.

“This is as high of an infection rate of anything that I am aware of in North America,” Moe said. “And that’s why we are taking this very seriously.”

In the coming days and weeks, the province said members of the Saskatchewan Health Authority (SHA) will travel to the province’s Hutterite communities to help contain and control the outbreaks. Moe said this situation will be treated very similarly to other outbreaks in the province including the one in La Loche.

“The outreach will be led by the Minister of Rural and Remote Health [Warren Kaeding] to all 80 of our Hutterite communities in the province in the coming days, the outreach by the [SHA],” he said. “We’re there to work with our communities, we’re there to support our communities in exactly the same way that the [SHA] has reached out and supported any other community that has had an outbreak here in Saskatchewan.”

Kaeding said the focus of the outreach efforts are education, testing, and determining the scope of the spread.

“Testing and tracing,” Kaeding said. “That’s the key to dealing with this all through the province and it’s no different dealing with that in colonies or any other communities. So, it’s testing and tracing, it’s being able to test and you’re seeing the results in some of our daily reports where you’re seeing some big numbers.”

Shahab said COVID-19 remains across the province and people should be mindful to not to discriminate those from Hutterite communities due to ongoing outbreak.

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mat.barrett@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @matbarrett6