City preparing for potential ‘watch status’ designation, mask bylaw unlikely

The press conference was sparked by a steep rise in cases of COVID-19 across Alberta over the last few weeks, with new measures being announced for communities placed under the province’s ‘watch list.’

“The weather is turning, it’s getting colder, we’re getting into holiday season,” said Brown. “If we do not change our behaviour locally, these cases will increase more so.”

Medicine Hat currently sits at 15 active cases of COVID-19, however those numbers have remained stagnant for the better part of a week due to technical issues with the province’s reporting system.

As a result, Brown is advising residents be prepared to see a spike in active cases once those technical problems are resolved.

“We could be very close to hitting that mark on the watch status,” he said. “It could be this afternoon, it could be tomorrow, it could be the next day. Recognizing that the interactive data app has been down but suspecting that our case counts are increasing, we could be in for a bit of a shock over the next day, or two days, or three days.”

Municipalities listed under the ‘watch status’ are mandated to implement 15-person restrictions on social gatherings within the community.

Those communities with the equivalent of 50 active cases per 100,000 residents are placed under the watch, meaning Medicine Hat would be listed between 40 and 45 active cases.

Despite Medicine Hat still being outside of that threshold as of early Monday afternoon, the City is wanting residents to be proactive in limiting their social gatherings.

“I’m asking everybody and all of our residents to start being proactive and start putting these measures in without having a watch status or without these mandatory restrictions in place,” said Brown.

Alberta’s chief medical officer of health Dr. Deena Hinshaw has indicated that most new cases of the virus aren’t coming from businesses or public spaces, but small gatherings of people.

Something that Brown is echoing in Medicine Hat.

“It’s not happening at major shopping centres, our case counts aren’t increasing based on people going to restaurants, our case counts are not increasing on places and businesses that have really good controls in place,” said Brown. “It’s in those social gathering areas.”

While other communities have implemented mandatory mask bylaws after reaching a certain threshold of cases, that likely won’t be the case in Medicine Hat due to where the cases are emerging from.

“This is one point where that mask bylaw will not impact it because the mask bylaw does not impact somebody in their household,” said Brown. “So if you’re having parties in a household, the mask bylaw doesn’t do anything.”

Brown said if Medicine Hat reaches a ‘watch status,’ his department will be contacted by Alberta Health Services regarding the impact on city-owned facilities like the Family Leisure Centre or Veiner Centre.

For now, there are no other restrictions that will be coming from the municipal level with those decisions coming down from the province.

“We would anticipate that Alberta Health Services or Alberta Health would put those in place provincially or region-specific as we’re seeing what’s occurring with the watch status,” said Brown. “No different than what would happen in Calgary and Edmonton where they’re just recommending no social gatherings whatsoever.”

by Scott Roblin

City preparing for potential ‘watch status’ designation, mask bylaw unlikely

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