(file photo/ CHAT NEWS Today)

By Tiffany Goodwein

City of Brooks still waiting for guidance on reopening

May 4, 2020 | 5:46 PM

BROOKS AB-As the province looks to reopen businesses deemed phase one by May 14, the City of Brooks is still waiting for guidance from the province on how to reopen.

The premier said Thursday that a localized approach to reopening may occur, meaning some communities may be delayed because of their case numbers.

But it remains to be seen whether Brooks will fall under that same umbrella.

“I haven’t heard anything more about that, you know we are expecting whatever guidelines are put in are obviously applicable across the board and we will monitor our situation independently as well as with the province,” Brooks Mayor Barry Morishita said.

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“What we are going to do is we are going to analyze the list from the 14th, and what isn’t on the list for the 14th and see if we have any specific sectors that we have to pay attention to, and then we will work with public health, and the province and if there is any issues that are outstanding with those. We will hopefully see a few guidelines come out. If not we will determine our own working with the businesses here locally,” he said.

Morishita said more details on reopening are expected to come from the province soon.

While some businesses such as the golf course have reopened as scheduled, Morishita is anticipating that some businesses may voluntarily choose to stay closed come May 14, and instead open on a different timeline.

“They will open when they can do so safely, and there will be lots of factors for individual businesses including staffing and whether they have the space to social distance, all of those things that they have to consider before they reopen.” Morishita said, adding the city will look to provide as much information that they can to local business owners.

With reopening likely to depend heavily on the case numbers and with the situation so fluid, the mayor said the city is looking closely at the matter on a day -by-day basis.

“Over the weekend we had our active cases decline, so our recoveries are coming up pretty quickly. We had very little growth in the total new cases over the weekend.”

“I mean if our numbers reflect that we can’t then we won’t but if our numbers are showing that public safety will be okay then we will do that,” he said.

As of Monday, the City of Brooks has 998 total cases, 758 are active and 235 are recovered.