Lethbridge City Hall. (Lethbridge News Now)

By David Opinko

Lethbridge’s State of Local Emergency will likely remain for a couple of weeks

Jun 10, 2020 | 1:03 PM

LETHBRIDGE, AB – A friendly reminder that the City of Lethbridge is still under a State of Local Emergency (SOLE).

It was issued on March 18 after the first few COVID-19 cases were confirmed in the community.

The main benefits of doing this were to utilize the Fritz Sick Memorial Centre’s gym as a temporary homeless shelter that would allow for a greater ability to maintain social distancing, as well as for emergency coordination.

“I believe we’ll probably be able to exit this State of Local Emergency in approximately two weeks,” says Director of Emergency Management Marc Rathwell.

There will be two primary factors in determining the official end to the SOLE – whether the extra space will still need to be used for the homeless population and whether Lethbridge sees a sudden spike in COVID-19 cases now that we are moving to Stage 2 of the relaunch strategy on Friday, June 12.

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“We only have three active cases in our community and we’ve got no one hospitalized or anything like that so we’re quite fortunate. We’re watching our numbers all the time.”

People will soon be able to access a wider array of recreational facilities and the limits on public gatherings will increase as part of the continued relaunch.

While people who do have stronger immune systems are less likely to see severe symptoms of COVID-19, Rathwell is worried about those who do not.

“My first and largest concern in my community is we have a large aged population, and that, as we’ve seen in Calgary and some of the other communities in Ontario and Quebec, that’s a big concern. Those folks, when they have it and it gets into sort of those closed communities in the nursing home, it spreads very very quickly and it causes a lot of concerns for us.”

He believes it is important to remember that COVID-19, while it has slowed down in Alberta for the time being, has not gone away.

Rathwell is urging the public to continue following physical and social distancing measures, wearing a face mask when you are not able to stay at least two metres apart from others, and practising good hygiene.