Barriere Mayor Ward Stamer is generally pleased with how the community has responded to the Covid-19 situation.
However, he is not so happy about the response from the provincial government.
“This is huge,” he said. “The province says that instead of 50 people at a construction site there should be 30. Really? They should shut everything down for two weeks.”
Stamer pointed to California, where the governor recently ordered all of the state’s 40 million residents to stay home except for essential services.
British Columbia now has more Covid-19 cases than California on a per capita basis, he said.
According to various sources, as of last weekend, B.C. had 424 confirmed cases, California, with almost 10 times the population, had 1,787.
“The doctors are clamouring that everything should be shut down but this government doesn’t want to do it,” he said.
It is essential that British Columbians “level the curve” to keep our healthcare system from being overwhelmed.
Stamer pointed out that Royal Inland Hospital has only a limited number of ventilators and that all or nearly all of them were in use before the Covid-19 situation began.
As reported in last week’s Star/Journal, District of Barriere has closed its offices to the public, although people can still contact staff by telephone or email.
All municipal services, such as water, wastewater and solid waste (garbage and recycling) have not been disrupted.
Barriere’s emergency services such as BC Ambulance Service, Barriere Fire Rescue, and First Responders have adopted new procedures to deal with the circumstances.
A member of Barriere RCMP detachment who was supposed to be on vacation has returned to duty.
Stamer praised the staff at IDA Pharmacy and AG Foods, Barriere’s only drugstore and only grocery, for the job they have been doing in difficult circumstances.
Some procedural changes might be needed to protect staff and ensure that service levels are maintained, the mayor said.