MLA unveils plan to deal with rising city COVID cases

By Lethbridge Herald on March 26, 2021.

Herald photo by Tim Kalinowski Lethbridge West MLA Shannon Phillips unveils her four-point plan to address the alarming rise of COVID-19 cases in Lethbridge in recent weeks at the Galt Museum and Archives on Friday.

Tim Kalinowski
Lethbridge Herald
tkalinowski@lethbridgeherald.com
Lethbridge West MLA Shannon Phillips is advocating for the Government of Alberta to introduce new Lethbridge-specific measures to deal with the recent alarming rise of COVID-19 cases in the city.
“There are currently 784 active cases in the South Zone with 508 active here in the City of Lethbridge,” she stated at a press conference held at the Galt Museum and Archives on Friday. “We have here in Lethbridge the highest rate of active cases among the province’s major cities. The rate of active cases in Lethbridge is over four times higher than in Edmonton, and more two and a half times higher than Calgary’s rate of COVID-19 cases. Those are startling figures.”
Phillips introduced a four-point plan which would, first, feature a daily briefing from the South Zone Medical Director until case counts return to the lower second wave levels seen earlier this year. The briefing should include, she said, “specific precautions for Lethbridge residents to reduce the spread of COVID-19, especially with the more contagious variant strains.”
Phillips said, secondly, there should be daily reporting of R-value in the South Zone in order to allow local officials and medical personnel to better track how the disease is spreading in Lethbridge. She said thirdly there should be more provincial support for small businesses through the Small and Medium Enterprise Relaunch Grant (SMERG) which are impacted by COVID-19. And, finally, she said, there should be an expansion of COVID Care Teams program to Lethbridge just as those teams are already on the ground in other cities like Calgary and Edmonton.
COVID Care Teams are sent in areas of those cities hardest hit by the disease to provide additional outreach, support and education to vulnerable residents particularly.
“If we sit back and do nothing again our healthcare system will once again be pushed to the brink,” Phillips stated, “and we will see small businesses, and those who work for them, suffer again with uncertainty and lack of support.”
Phillips stopped short of advocating for additional public health measures which might lead to the reclosure of some local businesses at this time.
“It’s not up to me to judge,” she replied when asked about this absence in her plan presented on Friday.
“I am not an epidemiologist for starters, and, for second, the people of Alberta do not have access to the same modelling and projections, and like I said R-value, reporting they have in other provinces. It is up to the province to be transparent with everyone on all modelling and all available reporting, as is done in other jurisdictions. And it is also up to them to put in place a framework on what kinds of drivers will predate certain kinds of decisions made for certain kinds of business activity.”
Phillips also rejected comparisons that the regional measures approach she was suggesting in this instance is in any way akin to what some UCP MLAs, particularly Cypress-Medicine Hat MLA Drew Barnes, have suggested in other jurisdictions where COVID cases remain low.
“What I am laying out here is a serious and credible plan that understands COVID-19 represents a very real threat to our health,” she stated, “and there are certainly elements within the Alberta Legislature who even take issue with having to wear a mask. Mr. Barnes is one of them. I don’t know if I am in any way, shape or form in agreement with his approach to this matter. What we have here is a specific regional issue to meet.”
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