Municipal officials from across the Tri-Cities are preparing to roll back services, shut down council meetings and deploy bylaw officers in compliance sweeps of local businesses after B.C.’s provincial health officer announced a series of new public health orders to stem a surge in COVID-19 cases.
“Clearly, we’re entering a very important time, with case counts we once thought were unthinkable,” said Port Coquitlam mayor Brad West Saturday. “This is an all hands on deck moment. It’s a critical time for us to get our virus under control.”
For the third straight day, B.C. has broken daily COVID-19 caseload records, with 567 cases reported over the last 24 hours. The rising caseloads reflect a shift to exponential transmission of the virus across the Lower Mainland and Fraser Valley.
Provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry has announced sweeping new restrictions across swaths of southwest British Columbia over what she described as a critical two week period.
The new orders focus on travel, businesses, social gatherings and indoor group exercises like yoga or spin classes. The new restrictions apply to all of Fraser Health — which includes the Tri-Cities — and Vancouver Coastal Health, excluding the Central Coast region centred on Bella Coola. They come into effect Saturday, Nov. 7, at 10 p.m. and extend until Monday, Nov. 23, at noon.
Travel in and out of the flagged jurisdictions is strongly discouraged and businesses are being asked to reassess and comply to health and safety guidelines. Party bus and group limousine companies are to shut immediately, along with anyone offering indoor group fitness.
“We’ve had a request from the health authority to assist their efforts to make sure they’re in compliance, particularly in businesses that attract a large number of people,” said West.
“During the weekend bylaw officers will be conducting sweeps to make sure there is compliance with the public health orders. I’ll expect they’ll have a very busy weekend ahead of them.”
So far, West said businesses have been very cooperative and bylaw officers will be focusing on educating any businesses flouting the rules before they call in RCMP or public health officers to enforce the orders.
“In many ways, we’re back to an earlier phase of restart, where there’s a number of restrictions still in place and there are things that are going to remain closed,” said West.
“Whether that continues beyond the weekend… that will depend on what they find in those sweeps and how the situation develops.”
The city or Port Coquitlam has also cancelled all indoor group exercise activities and will be offering anyone affected a full refund. Public facilities like the Port Coquitlam Rec Centre, will remain open to non-group activities and city staff are screening all of its operations to ensure its in compliance with the new orders.
“The numbers that we’ve seen over the last couple of days is probably a wake up call and people really need to buckle down so we can get the virus under control,” said West.
Port Moody mayor Rob Vagramov said the city will be ramping up meetings at the emergency control centre. Vagramov said the city is moving to hybrid council meetings — where staff, councillors and the public will have the option of attending in person or online — as well as group indoor fitness programming at city facilities starting Sunday, and the city is assessing whether it too will step up bylaw enforcement sweeps.
In a memo sent to staff, Vagramov wrote that over the next two weeks, city hall would be closed to the public and the “vast majority” of staff will work remotely.
Coquitlam mayor Richard Stewart was not immediately available for comment, though all jurisdictions across the Lower Mainland and Fraser Valley are expected to comply with the new orders.
In a further rollback to springtime restrictions, social gatherings must now be restricted to direct members of a household.
“Parties, events — right now for the next two weeks, those are not to happen,” said Dr. Henry Saturday afternoon.
And while only RCMP and public health officers have the power to enforce the new public health orders, mayor West said his team of bylaw officers would continue to be the “eyes and ears” of the community.
“They coordinate with all of them,” said West. “For the cast majority of our community, people are doing their part. Everybody wants to see this over with.”
“If they got into a situation where someone who simply refuses to comply with a health order, then they’ll call them in.”
CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story said Port Moody council was cancelling in-person council meetings. It is, in fact, moving to a hybrid model, which will allow attendees to participate online and in-person.
