Medical Health Officer Dr. Khami Chokani. (YouTube/City of Prince Albert)

By Alison Sandstrom

COVID-19

North Central Medical Health Officer urges residents to ‘pull together’ to bring down case numbers

Jan 15, 2021 | 5:05 PM

Amid rising case numbers, the medical health officer for the North Central region of Saskatchewan says it’s up to residents to work together to fight COVID-19.

“The residents of North Central are very good at pulling together,” Dr. Khami Chokani told paNOW. “This is one time that I ask, let’s pull together. We can defeat it, but only if we’re willing to put our heads together and come up with ways in which we can ensure that those public health measures are in place.”

According to information presented Thursday by the province’s Chief Medical Health Officer, Dr. Saqib Shahab, the per capita active case rate in the North Central zone was over double the provincial average last week.

(Government of Saskatchewan)

The North Central zone is further broken down into three sub-zones on the government of Saskatchewan’s website.

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As of Friday, the active case rate in North Central 1, which includes Timber Bay, Leask, Big River and Weirdale was 555.1 cases per 100,000 people. Meanwhile the active case rate in North Central 3, which includes Duck Lake, Hague, Wakaw and Rosthern had an active case rate of 934 cases per 100,000 people.

The active case rate in the City of Prince Albert (North Central 2) was 707.6 cases per 100,000 people on Friday. That’s around three times higher than either the Saskatoon or Regina zones.

The North Central zone is divided into three sub-zones. (Dashboard.saskatchewan.ca)

Asked what factors were contributing to Prince Albert’s high rate of COVID-19 compared to other areas of the province, Chokani said: “If I had the answer, we wouldn’t have the problem, what we are trying by all means is to have the support of the community in helping us to address this.”

Asked if more supports, like increased testing or vaccine distribution were needed in North Central, Chokani said that was under consideration by the province, but urged individual compliance with public health measures.

“We can only control this by our participation in it,” he said. “It can’t be solved any other way, unless we all, each and every single one of us, step up to the plate.”

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alison.sandstrom@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @alisandstrom