The government of Saskatchewan has been caught between two schools of thought since COVID-19 first arrived here. There is a distinct group of people who feel the current set of restrictions are far too harsh, while others feel they aren't restrictive enough. 

With case numbers rising rapidly in January, however, and current restrictions now extended for another two weeks, the province may be mulling even more rules. At a press conference yesterday, health officials revealed case numbers were trending in the direction of them needing to tighten up. 

"We have seen our case numbers rise, which is concerning," said Saskatchewan's Chief Medical Health Officer Dr. Saqib Shahab. "In fact, the last four or five days have been very concerning with three days with 300 (new cases) and one day with 400."

Dr. Shahab said these numbers strongly suggested there were gatherings in Saskatchewan over Christmas that violated provincial health orders. The modeling predicted a spike like this if people ignored the orders.

"I think we have to recognize that unless all of us pull together, COVID comes back with a vengeance," he said. "That's what we're seeing right now. Unless we can collectively return to our very cautious behavior that allowed us to do so many things, we will not be able to reverse this trend, and then, unfortunately, we will have to recommend several measures that would be quite significant."

Dr. Shahab did not say directly what those measures might be, but a quick look at some other provinces offers some insight into what they might be. In many other provinces, gyms and hair salons, for example, are shut down. Ontario recently issued a stay-at-home order, while Quebec has put a curfew into place.

"Our case numbers as a seven-day average are second-highest right now in Canada (per capita)," Dr. Shahab said. "Active case numbers, we're tied with the highest in Canada. I think we have to be very cautious now, even more so than we were in December."

There are 3752 active cases in Saskatchewan as of yesterday's update, an increase of over 1000 from the low point in December, which was itself a huge decrease from the previous high.