OLDS – Town councillors have been given an update on COVID-19 response activities and plans of the Olds emergency operations centre (EOC) and town administration.
Those efforts include work now underway with local businesses on post-COVID planning.
The review came during the April 14 regular council meeting, which was held by teleconference.
Brian Powell, the town’s director of emergency management gave an update on the EOC activities. The low number of cases of COVID-19 in the region is “testament to civil compliance and the public health measures that are actually showing their ability to work in our area,” he said.
“Compliance of public health directives remains at an all-time high for our community and that’s a good news story and that speaks to having a great community and people are genuinely concerned and wanting to comply.
“We are not out of the woods yet. We as Albertans are blessed with having geospatial distancing already in place and for that reason we are not in a highly populated region. I’m not dismissing the efforts here.”
Residents should be encouraged to “maintain hyper vigilance on social distancing.”
There have been two confirmed COVID-19 cases in the Olds area and both have recovered.
New 24-hour COVID-19 testing tools become available in the province is good news, he said.
“If we have a 24-hour testing device in place then our isolation orders essentially could then be significantly less as a result of that. We will watch and wait for that to come.”
There is still no need to declare a state of local emergency in Olds, he said.
A total of 28 people have been working at the EOC.
“We are a long ways from the recovery and the worst has not hit us yet,” he said. “However, simultaneously we will work on recovery strategies.”
CAO Michael Merritt said the town has been engaging with the business community regarding recovery strategies.
“That is a going to be a long-term recovery,” said Merritt. “There is no expectation that we are going to be through this in the next weeks or months; it’s going to be much longer than that.”
The town has created a task force comprised of town officials, Olds Institute, the chamber of commerce, members of the local business community, and financial experts, he said.
As part of the task force’s work, a business registry has been created to gather input from businesses on their circumstance and needs going forward.
“We are looking at a 30, 90 and 270 day outcomes for this task force,” he said. “I believe we are going to be into this until 2021. This economic recovery will come once we have dealt with the health concerns in the province and the country. We are well underway.”
There have already been more than a dozen entries into the registry, he said.
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The town is also preparing a list of future infrastructure projects, he said.
“The province has indicated that it is going to spend substantially new dollars in regards to infrastructure projects,” he said. “So we have a draft list of projects that we are just finalizing, five or six projects that are shovel-ready.
“We believe they are valuable not only to get the town’s operations continued but also to get the economy up and running and to get our employers and employees back to work as soon as possible.”
Coun. Wanda Blatz asked Powell about what plans are contemplated to monitor people coming into the community from outside once some of the social distancing restrictions are lifted.
“Do we have some kind of plan in place to ensure that if we do lift (restrictions) earlier than urban centres we can still protect our citizens?”
Powell replied, “I will assure you that once the re-entries come they will be communicated well in advance on what those rules may be. We are going to take the lead from the public health folks who have been clear on their messaging.”
Council was given an update on the Great Neighbours outreach program now operating in town.
Mayor Michael Muzychka commended local businesses that have remained open and those that have temporarily closed for their efforts in helping with COVID-19 response.
“The impact on these businesses in tremendous,” he said. “We appreciate all the businesses, as well as all our citizens. It’s hard and we know it’s hard but we look at the evidence and it’s working. So let’s keep the course and let’s pound this right into the ground.”
