COVID-19 in Sask: Province hiring new lab staff in hopes of meeting testing goals

The province is hoping to hire and train more lab staff to meet heightened demand and reach the goal of processing 4,000 tests a day.

According to a news release, the Saskatchewan Health Authority hopes to hire 76 people. Twenty-seven positions have been filled so far.

Last week, CBC reported that the Service EmployeesInternational Union (SEIU) West, which represents Saskatchewan Health Authority (SHA) employees, recently wrote anopen letterto Premier Scott Moe and other ministries.The union stated that its members are struggling to keep up with testing initiatives and demands.

In a survey, SEIU-West found that42 per cent of its SHA members foundtheir lab to beshort-staffed at least once per week. Sixty-sevenper cent said they worked overtime hoursat least once a week.

When asked Tuesday about the possibility of relaxing more COVID restrictions in time for something like hockey season, Chief Medical Health Officer Dr. Saqib Shahab said a hockey season is a possibility.

"[Our current restrictions are] working well so those same principles can be applied to hockey," Shahab said.

Premier Scott Moe also commented, sayingthat it is not an active discussion in his day-to-day, but if a group brought a proposal to him, he would listen.

The province saw this earlier this year with things like churches and other religious services.

Daily numbers

There are 10 new known cases of COVID-19 in SaskatchewanTuesday: one in the far northeast zone, one in the central west zone, two in the Regina area and six in the Saskatoon area.

Two of the new Saskatoon cases are related to an outbreak at Brandt Industries. So far, 19 cases have been linked to that outbreak. The province said these latest cases are from close contacts of employees, not other employees.

The province now has 146 known active cases. Twenty-four of those are linked to communal living settings.

Nine people have recovered since Monday and nine people are in hospital.

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