Hutterian Safety Council attributes uptick in COVID cases to increased testing, return to school

With school back in session and more testing being done, the Hutterian Safety Council isn’t surprised by an uptick in COVID-19 cases in Hutterite communities.

“The Saskatchewan Health Authority was working diligently to go through all the communities. We were coming down to the wire where they’re actually getting to the last few. Moving forward, I’m expecting there may be the odd uptick here and there as these last remaining communities get tested,” said David Tschetter, the chair of the HSC.

As of Wednesday, 32 of the 107 active cases reported in Saskatchewan are from communal living situations.

He said communities have been implementing their back-to-school plans as well.

“Part of that is to reassure teachers who may be anxious, that they get the assurance they’re coming back to a safe environment. Therefore, these communities will do either community-wide testing or community-wide testing as a result of contact trace management and therefore when a community has more than one case, those will be identified and result in an uptick,” Tschetter said.

“There’s no surprise (and) no alarms there. Things are going as expected. These communities are very supportive of the back-to-school plan. They’re making it a top priority and things are looking really well and a vast majority of communities in the province of Saskatchewan do have in-class learning.”

Tschetter said there is no intercommunity travel by the students, with only the teacher coming from outside of a community. He said because of this, masks are not mandatory for the most part.

“Because the students live on the community, they are a single body as in a student cohort,” Tschetter said. “Attention is paid to keeping the teacher, which is a non-Hutterite, safe from the student body so masks are used when physical distancing with the teacher is not available.”

In July, Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe addressed Hutterite communities, saying some had been resistant to testing.

Tschetter said he didn’t have the identities of the communities but believes that relationship has been fixed.

“There was a proportionate few that need some extra attention but according to our sources within the SHA, there has been good progress in those communities as well. The back-to-school plan does flex some additional muscle in ensuring that these cases get identified and that’s what we’re seeing with these last bit of upticks,” Tschetter said.

He said he is confident the communities will be able to keep the virus numbers under control.

“It was a slow learning curve but we’ve managed to bring it under control and I think our communities will do an extraordinary job keeping those numbers down going forward,” Tschetter said. “We’ve got to get the students comfortable, get the teachers comfortable and let’s get ready for Christmas.”