COVID-19 Alberni Valley Response

In addition to advising customers to avoid non-essential travel at this time, significant service reductions went into effect on Saturday, April 4, for a period of 60 days on major routes and until further notice on other routes. In addition, for any route longer than 30 minutes, BC Ferries will screen all customers for COVID-19 symptoms and restrict travel to any customer that does not meet the screening requirements, as per the federal guidelines. For a complete list of the new measures and the exceptions, visit: https://www.tc.gc.ca/en/transport-canada.html.

The application portal for the federal Canada Emergency Response Benefit is now open for eligible Canadians who have lost their income because of COVID-19. The emergency financial aid offers $2,000 a month for up to four months to help businesses and families struggling to make ends meet because of the pandemic, including those not eligible for EI, contract employees and freelancers. The application window has been staggered by birth month. People born in January, February and March can apply Monday. People with birthdays later in the year will have their days later this week. For more information and how to apply, please visit: https://www.canada.ca/en/department-finance/economic-response-plan.html.

An excerpt from the most recent message to parents from SD70’s Superintendent:

April3 – We continue to abide by the directive and advice of the Provincial Health Officer and the Ministry of Education, meaning that schools remain “shuttered” with access only for maintenance and cleaning purposes, retrieval of essential items and soon services for children of front-line essential service workers. Teachers have been reaching out to students and parents this week to reconnect and to explore what learning might look like in the future, and it is clear that there is a wide range of student need and family readiness to support learning at home. A lot of consideration is going into how we address issues of equity, accessibility and capacity while balancing health and safety concerns and recommended best practices such as isolation and physical distancing. The goal is to be fully up and running in the new reality by the middle of April.

For access to the full message as well as information and updates from both the school district and the Ministry of Education, please visit https://www.sd70.bc.ca/.

The province has launched a process to match parents, who are working on the front lines of B.C.’s COVID-19 response and have children up to five years of age, with child care in their communities. Child care spaces will be prioritized for children whose parents work in public health and health services, social services, law enforcement, first responders and emergency response sectors. Additional spaces will then be given to families working in other crucial roles, defined as essential service workers.

As of March 31^st, essential workers can fill out a new “parent” form to identify their need for urgent child care. Forms can be accessed by calling 1 888 338-6622 and selecting Option 4, or online:

www.gov.bc.ca/essential-service-child-care. Child Care Resource Referral (CCRR) centres will reach out to essential-service workers in their area who filled in the form to connect them with available licensed child care spaces.

For the full news release including frequently asked questions, please visit: https://news.gov.bc.ca/releases/2020CFD0017-000599.

Since departing for Spring Break on March 13, 2020, government has indefinitely suspended in-class instruction, meaning that children will not return as scheduled on March 30th and will remain at home until further notice. In place of in-class instruction, government has directed school districts to explore continuity of learning and to consider ways to support parents deemed essential service workers by government (ie. frontline health care professionals, emergency responders). The latter may eventually include providing on-site care to younger students to enable these Essential Service Workers to continue working.

For School District 70, our immediate tasks include determining the availability and capacity of our workforce, particularly given Provincial Health Officer directions regarding large gatherings, self-isolation and physical distancing; to identify and assess needs of essential service workers; and to practically consider what continuity of learning opportunities means for our students. To accomplish these tasks, the week of March 30th – April 3rd will be a planning week across the school district and students and parents should not expect any substantial learning materials until Monday, April 6th at the earliest. Instead, it is expected that early next week parents/caregivers will be contacted by teachers to reconnect, discuss learning options, explore access to technology and digital resources, and consider ways to help parents support students while more detailed learning plans are being developed. Schools will not be open to students and school personnel will not be on site next week.

For more information please visit https://www.sd70.bc.ca/. The Ministry of Education also released an FAQ document for parents which can be accessed here.

April 1, 2020 - BC Hydro announced it is introducing a COVID-19 Relief Fund program. Residential customers that have lost their job or are unable to work will be able to apply to receive a one-time bill credit of three times their average monthly bill amount. Small business customers that have had to close their business as a result of measures implemented to help prevent the spread of COVID-19 will also be able to apply to have their electricity costs waived for up to three months.

Eligible residential customers will be able to apply for the COVID-19 Relief Fund by the end of next week and small business customers will be able to apply starting April 14. Customers have until June 30, 2020 to apply for relief. In addition, BC Hydro announced a COVID-19 Customer Assistance Program. This program provides customers the option to defer bill payments or arrange for flexible payment plans with no penalty. To discuss payment options, BC Hydro customers are encouraged to call 1 800 BCHYDRO (1 800 224 9376).

For more information on the COVID-19 Relief Fund, visit bchydro.com/covid19relief.

March 30, 2020 - The Ministry of Environment and Climate Change has issued open burning restrictions for all High Smoke Sensitivity Zones across the province. This provincial ban applies to the the Alberni Valley and it includes a total outdoor burning ban effective at 12:00 pm noon on March 30, 2020. No new fires may be initiated, and no new material may be added to existing fires after this time. Issuance of burning permits is suspended until this ban is lifted.

As cases of novel coronavirus (COVID-19) in BC continue to increase, the BC Centre for Disease Control recommends implementing measures that help to reduce excess air pollution in populated airsheds across the province. There is strong evidence that exposure to air pollution increases susceptibility to respiratory viral infections by decreasing immune function. This means that:

• Deterioration in air quality may lead to more COVID-19 infections overall,
• Deterioration in air quality may lead to more cases of severe COVID-19 infections, adding further demand to our healthcare system, and
• Improvements to air quality may help to protect the whole population from COVID-19 and its potentially severe effects.

These open burning restrictions will remain in place until Wednesday, April 15^th 2020.

Issuance of burning permits is suspended until this ban is lifted.

For further information, please visit the BC Ministry of Environment and Climate Change website at:

https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/environment/air-land-water/air/air-quality/air-advisories

To view an interactive ventilation index map, visit:

https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/environment/air-land-water/air/air-pollution/smoke-burning/ventilation-index

March 22, 2020 - Effective immediately, all playgrounds within the City of Port Alberni and Alberni-Clayoquot Regional District (ACRD) are closed until further notice.

This decision was made in an effort to help stop the spread of COVID-19, protect our residents and encourage social distancing in our communities.

“The elected leaders of the City and ACRD received considerable feedback on the need to close City and ACRD playgrounds. Taking into account the increasing importance of practicing social distancing, and knowing that COVID-19 can live on hard surfaces and be transferred to users of playground equipment, we feel it prudent to take this step as a further measure to help prevent the spread of coronavirus,” said Doug Holmes, Emergency Operations Centre (EOC) Director.

Appropriate signage will be posted at City and Regional playgrounds as soon as possible.

The safety and welfare of all residents are of paramount importance. We continue to monitor information provided by the Federal, Provincial and local agencies regarding the spread and severity of COVID-19.

March 21, 2020 - The Alberni-Clayoquot Regional District and City of Port Alberni join communities on the West Coast, requesting visitors and tourists not to travel to Tofino, Ucluelet, Long Beach, Toquaht, Yuułuʔiłʔatḥ, Tla-o-qui-aht, Ahousaht, Bamfield, Huu-ay-aht and Uchucklesaht until further notice.

Personal health and safety of our residents is the driving force behind this request. Communities on the West Coast have limited health care resources to serve their residents. Additional visitors and tourists to the area at this time will impact the health and safety of these communities and put additional strains on their already limited health care system. It is extremely difficult for these communities to self isolate if visitors and tourists continue to travel to the area.

We continue to monitor information provided by the Federal, Provincial and local agencies regarding the spread and severity of COVID-19. Our immediate priority is the safety of our residents.

March 20, 2020 - BC Transit’s Emergency Operations Centre (EOC) has been meeting regularly and working to ensure we are taking appropriate actions to protect the health and safety of our operators, staff and our customers.

A key safety measure transit systems across North America can offer is to move to rear-door boarding on all buses that have them, and to cease revenue collection on all buses (including handyDART). This minimizes interactions between operators and customers and creates conditions that support social distancing. It is imperative that we provide a safe working environment for everyone especially our operators, especially as we continue to provide essential services to those who rely on them.

Over the past 48 hours, we have worked closely with many local government partners to secure approvals to make this change and in many of our systems this has been implemented or is already underway. These changes were implemented in Nanaimo and Victoria on March 19. It has since been implemented in other BC Transit systems and throughout the TransLink transit system in the Lower Mainland. In order to ensure a consistent approach across the province, this morning the BC Transit EOC has made the decision to mandate all remaining systems to move in this direction. Operational changes will occur no later than Saturday, March 21 and may be sooner, depending upon the ability to implement by our operating partners. This is in effect for conventional, community, and custom systems.

The decision to move in this direction has not been taken lightly, and we recognize this does not align with normal approval processes. In these extraordinary circumstances, we remain focused on the health and safety of our operators and customers, and we must all take action to protect them. In the coming weeks we will work closely with you to manage the implications of making this change.

We also recommend for the next week we maintain existing service levels and allow our operating companies to manage trips to meet resource availability. This will also support our provincial edict to maintain social distancing while ridership levels stabilize. We are going to be working closely with you to monitor ridership and stabilize service needs for the foreseeable future.