'A fall and winter of misery': Sask.'s top doctor predicts grim end of 2021

Saskatchewan’s chief medical health officer predicts Thanksgiving and Christmas might have a familiar feeling for Saskatchewan residents this year – and it’s for all the wrong reasons.

“We will not only not have Thanksgiving at this rate, we will likely not have Christmas and New Years at this rate,” said Dr. Saqib Shahab during a provincial COVID-19 update on Wednesday.

“We are headed for a fall and winter of misery.”

Saskatchewan has been steadily breaking pandemic records for weeks now. The Delta-fuelled fourth wave of COVID-19 has pushed new case counts, active cases, hospitalizations, ICU admissions and the rolling average of new infections to all-time highs in the province.

In September, there were 12,370 new cases recorded – accounting for 18.5 per cent of total cases recorded in the province since the beginning of the pandemic.