Things are getting better, although it may be hard to convince people that this is the case.
After all, there are legitimate reasons of late to think that the impact of this COVID-19 pandemic is making things much worse.
The past week or so seemed pretty gruesome on all fronts鈥� other than the reality that our COVID-19 cases are actually steadily decreasing.
It started with news from Premier Scott Moe and Finance Minister Donna Harpauer that the 2020-21 Saskatchewan budget revenue shortfall might be anywhere between $1.3 billion and $3.3 billion. That would imply a record annual deficit for the province of Saskatchewan.
Good for Moe and Harpauer for at least making us aware of this reality a month after releasing only government spending estimates without any meaningful revenue projections.
As potentially bad as this news is, it鈥檚 always better to know about the worst case scenarios in advance.
Yes, it was a bit of a disservice for Moe and Harpauer to suggest this would be a 鈥減andemic deficit鈥� and that there was no major worries about it extending into future years.
Beyond the fact that no one can say for certain how long the economic effect will be, we already know that COVID-19 spending and this lost revenue will add to the costs of servicing the debt.
We also know that Saskatchewan public debt was creeping up towards $23 billion long before this massive revenue dip.
The next unfortunate bad news was the price of a barrel oil dipping into negative territory, meaning that oil companies would, at least in theory, pay you store their oil that day.
This is devastating news for the oil industry that will affect large areas of rural Saskatchewan. To be clear, oil is not valueless and it will rebound - likely when Saudi Arabia and Russia stop playing games by overproducing to flood the market.
But its economic impact will hurt for some time to come.
And all of this happened at a time when the country had just witnessed its biggest mass murder in its history. This only added to the pallor.
In short, it鈥檚 getting hard to feel good right now, so maybe now is the time to remind ourselves that there are still a lot of things to feel good about.
The first good thing is that for the past two weeks, the daily increase in new COVID-19 cases is in the low single digits. Recoveries are now outdistancing new cases.
As of the writing of this column, active COVID-19 cases have been reduced to 65 cases in this province with only five deaths.
That is magnificent news 鈥� news so good that the Premier has begun the process of an ever-so-slow re-opening of the economy.
It can and should be done with keeping the focus on-going social distancing measures that have stopped the spread and flattened the curve.
We can do both stop the spread and open business, although perhaps not to the satisfaction of everyone.
But one other thing that maybe people are not thinking too much about is how much this is bringing us together.
Sure, that鈥檚 not always been the case.
News of the oil price crash brought out a few self-righteous and comments from environmentalists. And some in the oil sector were clearly unappreciative of federal and provincial support for programs like the one to clean up abandoned wells that have long been the industry鈥檚 responsibility.
But while some have been reacting out of fear and anger, the vast majority of Saskatchewan people have reacted with generosity and kindness.
We have returned to our Saskatchewan values and traditions of looking out for our neighbours.
All this may has reminded us who we really are.
Murray Mandryk has been covering provincial politics for over 22 years.
