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Saskatchewan will start a careful and phased reopening in May, beginning with golf courses, hair salons and retail stores.
What about Alberta? Premier Jason Kenney and his emergency cabinet are digging into this question.
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David Staples: Alberta going with Taiwan plan, not Swedish experiment, to battle COVID-19 Back to video
Should Alberta follow Saskatchewan’s lead?
The spread of COVID-19 in Alberta and Saskatchewan was tracking closely, said Alberta’s chief medical officer of health Dr. Deena Hinshaw on Thursday, but then Alberta had two significant outbreaks at huge meat-processing plants.
This has led to an uptick in hospitalization and ICU numbers in Alberta, although the province is still well below where Alberta Health forecasters predicted it would be if there were no restrictions, Hinshaw said.
Alberta’s model predicted about 50 people in ICU by now and about 375 in the hospital. Instead, we have 18 in ICU and 72 hospitalized with COVID-19.
The group of Albertans most keen for reopening leans toward following the Swedish model. Most stores, hair salons, restaurants, factories and public facilities have remained open in Sweden, even without massive testing, strict quarantines or any mass public use of face masks.
