During an unprecedented live-streamed and cable-televised virtual meeting of Elliot Lake City Council Monday night, among other things, officials provided information on changes the city and the medical community has made locally to deal with the international COVID-19 pandemic.
The province only recently approved virtual council meetings as the health-related coronavirus issue continues to dominate.
There were words of encouragement and updated information from Elliot Lake Mayor Dan Marchisella, CAO Daniel Gagnon and Dr. Cathy Groh, representing the Elliot Lake Family Health Team (ELFHT).
The mayor said, "To those who have asked why the city has not declared its own state of emergency. I'd have to say because this would be a redundant measure as a whole province is already in a state of emergency. Declaring locally would not open any new doors or prioritize our community as there's no massive stash of medical supplies or other resources for us to gain. Every community is in the same boat, right?"
He said the city is currently following emergency plans including the pandemic protocol mainly to provide essential services in the community.
The mayor added, "We already have people panic shopping. And unfortunately a declaration would only heighten this to a new level of hysteria and desperation. This is something I've personally witnessed in the past and I have no interest in seeing happen in our community."
"I've seen it again this morning as part of the food supply industry. At 7:30 in the morning, there were about 60 people lined up outside of No Frills and by 8:00 there were probably about 100. I've been told that people are kicking on the doors wanting to get in and throwing items at the cashiers. We really need to take a step back and look at our actions. There are no food shortages that I'm aware of in our country. Most of the supplies are produced in Canada. The shortages we're seeing on the shelves right now are being caused by what I call pandemic panic shopping, and there's literally no need for it," he added.
He noted Elliott Lake has a higher than average percentage of individuals considered vulnerable to the virus. As well, the latest Stats Can census figures show over 50 percent of the community is age 60 or older.
"That vulnerable sector includes the elderly, individuals with immune deficiencies or respiratory illnesses, and we need to ensure they stay protected," he concluded.
The mayor went on to explain that people being asked to accept self-imposed sequestering at home do not need to go out for groceries or anything else. The city is providing delivery service for people who call 705-849-0970. To get the information and to register online go to the city website.
He said by calling '211' you can access all the information relating to hydro and gas services, health care and all goverment information.
At the same time, the OPP now have the authority to enforce Emergency Management provisions, which include fines to persons up to $1,000 and fines to businesses up to $500,000 for not following the provisions.
Dr. Groh reminded viewers they need to keep themselves and others safe by measures including hand cleaning, social distancing and coughing into the sleeve.
Along with those measures, those who are sick need to stay at home. Returning travelers must stay at home and self-isolate for two weeks. Dr. Groh explained it does not matter whether you feel ill or not, you're potentially risking the lives of others around you.
Dr. Grohl said the Health Team is encouraging patients to seek advice or diagnosis from their doctor by telephone by calling the office at 705-461-8882. She added patients will continue to be seen at the ELFHT offices downtown, when necessary.
Looking ahead, with the support of Algoma Public Health, the local doctors are seeking a designation for a COVOID-19 testing protocol.
Noting the concentration of elderly patients in the community, Dr. Groh explained that designation would provide ELFHT with access to more test kits which facilitate taking swabs to determine whether patients are positive for the virus, or not.
She said patients can call ELFHT and ask for testing. If needed a nurse will come to the patient's home to collect a sample. Dr. Groh also advised patients to call Elliot Lake St. Joseph's General Hospital in adance, before going to the emergency department for assessment of flu-like symptoms or other issues.
As to the evening's virtual meeting format, CAO Gagnon said, "Last Thursday, we had an emergency council meeting. We were concerned at the time that we may not be able to meet physically and legally as a council. And we had a couple of pressing items that were that were looming. Somewhat ironically, within a couple hours of having a meeting a little bit earlier than that, the government relaxed the rules about electronic participation for council meetings. But up until that emergency meeting, we had a desire to acquire a new street sweeper, Mr. Halloch (Dir of Public Works Daryl Halloch) and our mechanic drove down before the sort of moratorium took place and and inspected this demo model at very low hours. It is essentially a brand new unit that we were able to acquire. The budget was in that range. It's in the municipal draft budget of $360,000. We didn't want to lose this opportunity. Other municipalities were lining up for it. And we needed it. Our current street sweeper is aging badly."
"So we had the emergency council meeting last Thursday, of course, we weren't able to invite the public because at this point, we were prohibiting any access to public gatherings (at city hall). Then, we had just heard of relief from the province about the electronic participation. So basically, council approved the sole source to the company to acquire the street sweeper and pre-approve the expense in the 2020 Municipal budget. The sweeper I'm told is to be delivered tomorrow and should about be soon as we're ready to start clearing roads of the salt and sand. We'll have it in use, which will be very timely," Gagnon explained .
"Another issue we had was a 9-1-1 Dispatch. Again, the agreement we have with a company in Sault Ste. Marie was expiring on April 1. I'm sure under circumstances, we could have have extended but, again, we weren't sure when we'd be able to meet again. So we approved the renewal of that agreement. But that is subject to change. Because come the fall of 2020, we should be able to do our own dispatch, and we won't need this agreement anymore. But we had that expiring and we were concerned. So those are the two pressing items we had on the emergency council meeting on March 19. Just for accountability and transparency, I thought it was appropriate to let the public know that we did that. And we are going to get into how we're going to be changing our meeting procedures in the future," he continued.
"So up until last Thursday, when the municipalities were able to meet, councillors could call in. We've seen it around some of our council tables where we would have a councillor call in. They were able to participate and vote in an open session meeting. But their presence by phone did not count for a quorum. So we have a problem in that sense that we were not able to meet. And this was the same for every municipality in Ontario. You weren't able to meet legally and form a quorum, if you wanted all seven (councillors) to participate electronically. What what we're going to see is a new normal for the next little while. So by lobbying and informing the province of this they changed that rule effective last Thursday. We still need to amend our procedural bylaw, But at least now we can do that with electronic participation from councillors," Mr Gagnon added this includes committees as well.