Brooks Mayor Barry Morishita (file photo/ CHAT News Today)

By Tiffany Goodwein

Reopening may be delayed

Brooks Mayor in support of localized approach to reopening

May 2, 2020 | 2:02 PM

BROOKS, AB.-Taking to Facebook live Friday afternoon, Brooks Mayor Barry Morishita told viewers the city is in support of the Province of Alberta’s plan to look at reopening based on a more localized approach.

“The premier made it very clear and I support this that there are going to be key measures in timing through the reopening process that include things like percentage of tests that are positive and hospitalizations and intensive care rates,” he said.

“It is important to note that he also said some individual communities and local municipalities, may be phased in at a different rate based on the activity going on, and I 100 per cent support that,” Morishita said.

Premier Kenney made the remarks on Thursday while announcing the province’s phased in approach to reopening the economy.

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“ We may take a local approach, but that local approach may not be based on an entire health zone, because those health zones that we have in the province, they are really made up for administrative purposes and they don’t necessarily reflect…I mean you could have one small corner of Calgary or one particular workplace, with a real problem, a real outbreak and the rest of the city might be doing reasonably well. Or on the other hand you might see a number of small towns with outbreaks.” Kenney explained Thursday

The city’s state of emergency may also come into play when it comes to reopening, according Morishita.

“If it comes down to a community decision we still have the state of emergency that is in place here in Brooks, and we will use it if we think it is in the community’s interest to not allow some of the reopenings to happen,” Morishita said.

As of last update Friday afternoon, the city of Brooks has 950 cases of COVID-19 in the community. A total of 846 are considered active and 100 cases have since recovered.

Four people have passed away from the virus.

The province confirmed that one person who died was a worker at the JBS Canada meat plant.

The three other deaths were residents from the Sunrise Gardens care facility, according to Morishita.