OLDS — Olds COVID-19 incident command post (ICP) director Brian Powell and his staff are “alarmed” by the community’s COVID case count.
Powell made that statement in his first COVID update of the new year, delivered during town council’s Jan. 11 council meeting.
He said as of that date, there were 39 active cases in Olds and area.
“We’re alarmed by that number,” Powell said, adding local officials are working with Alberta Health Services to find out if there’s a specific demographic responsible for that figure.
“In terms of cases per 100,000, that’s not a very good statistic to have, so we’re genuinely concerned.”
As of the end of day on Jan. 17, the Olds local geographic area had 24 active cases.
He also confirmed an outbreak had occurred at Sundial Growers but said it’s being handled by the company via its own incident command post and town staff are helping wherever they can.
Between Dec. 28 and Jan. 8, six verbal warnings had been issued for non-compliance with COVID-19 health protocols and three violations tickets were issued “once it was determined that education was not going to provide compliance,” a report in the town agenda says.
"Three violations cited were issued tickets for contravening an order of the medical officer of health," protective services director Justin Andrew wrote in an email.
"This is not a Town of Olds municipal bylaw violation but a provincial violation that municipalities have been directed to enforce through the solicitor general for Alberta. No formalized warnings or violations have come through for municipal enforcement since Jan. 8."
Command staff have been keeping communicating regularly regarding COVID with key stakeholders in the community, including Alberta Health Services, Olds Hospital and Care Centre, Olds College, Sundial Growers, Mountain View Seniors' Housing and Alberta Emergency Management, he said.
“We’ve been) having those conversations fairly regularly, maintaining those updates and seeing where we’re able to help and getting the true information when we can," he said.
Powell pointed out that recreation facilities in town continue to remain closed until further notice.
Strategy and technology officer Larry Wright has been kept “very, very busy” trying to stay on top of information that could help local businesses, he said.
Coun. Mary Anne Overwater wondered if COVID cases can be dealt with at the Olds Hospital and Care Centre.
Powell said the hospital is set up to take COVID intakes, however there is no ICU in the Olds Hospital. If patients admitted require intensive care, they have to be sent to the intensive care unit (ICU) in Red Deer Regional Hospital.
"That is another genuine concern of ours, because we are very well aware that Red Deer is very close to capacity with their ICU,” Powell said.
“When little Olds in the scale of it has 39 active cases, we do not want to be sending ICU capacity to Red Deer, because we’re all part of that bedspace story, in addition to whatever capacity Olds Hospital can offer for other communities as well.”
Coun. Wanda Blatz pointed out that COVID is not the only reason people require hospital care. They can be hit some other disease or require emergency surgery for other problems like heart attacks.
“I don’t know that people are really aware of really the domino type of effect that this does have and I think that that needs to be part of our education piece as well,” said Blatz. Powell agreed.
Coun. Overwater said there’s a strong need to continue educating people about the need to follow health restrictions to battle COVID.
She indicated that that effort has been hampered by politicians who disobeyed those restrictions and left the province during the Christmas holidays.
Powell and Andrew agreed that those things as well as some inflammatory statements on social media complicate the job.
Powell praised ICP staff for their efforts, and mayor Michael Muzychka echoed that sentiment.
"Thank you to your entire group. You guys have done phenomenal work. And it’s not been lost on the Alberta government as well. We continue to get those very positive (statements) from the powers that be there,” Muzychka said.
“You guys are leading the pack and we appreciate all the work that you do.”
