Mayo Tara Veer spoke to Red Deerians through a Facebook live chat Wednesday morning.

By Troy Gillard

"we need to continue to be diligent"

Mayor urges Red Deerians to ‘pull together’ to limit COVID spread

May 5, 2021 | 1:21 PM

Red Deer’s mayor says she knows people are frustrated over COVID-19 and the latest round of public health measures aimed at beating it.

But Tara Veer is encouraging Red Deerians to be united and strong to limit community spread of the virus.

“it is affecting us all in one form or another, and although we are all incredibly pandemic weary, we need to continue to be diligent in terms of doing all that we can in ensuring that we limit the spread of this virus,” Veer said during a Facebook live update Wednesday morning.

There are 881 active cases of COVID-19 in Red Deer as of Tuesday, and 2,836 across the Central Zone. There are 62 hospitalizations in the zone, including nine in the ICU at Red Deer Regional Hospital.

Veer says we are once again at a critical stage of the pandemic.

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“While vaccines are offering long-term hope of resuming something closer to normal life, we hope in the months ahead, we still have a responsibility to minimize spread in the short-term,” she explained.

“We know that this is an incredibly challenging time for many people. Yet again businesses are faced with uncertainty, and some are even faced with imminent closures. And we have many individuals who are fighting for their lives and who are fearful for their loved ones. So our pandemic response is very personal for people. And as much as possible I appeal to our community on behalf of council and our emergency operations team that we will pull together and do what we can.”

Veer is hopeful that the latest round of public health restrictions announced by the provincial government will be effective, and encourages everyone to abide by them in order to mitigate community spread.

“This year has been a challenging one for everyone, but we will make it through this. There will (be) and end to this if we work together,” she urged. “It’s absolutely imperative that we remain strong and remember that every measure that we take is not only to protect ourselves but others, and above all to protect capacity at our local hospital.”

Veer says while the possibility of “Red Deer-specific” measures is discussed on an ongoing basis, Veer says there are no plans right now to implement anything beyond what the province has in place.

“Most of the local measures that we would have looked at… those measures are already now underway,” she noted.

The City of Red Deer’s Emergency Operations Centre remains open at this time to help coordinate the local municipal response to the pandemic and the latest restrictions.

City Manager Allan Seabrooke says RCMP and Municipal Peace Officers are ready to assist AHS in ensuring measures are adhered to, with a particular focus on repeat offenders.

“Those that continue to not follow regulations and put Albertans at risk, and Red Deerians at risk – repeat offenders will be dealt with,” he stressed, noting violation fines have doubled as part of the province’s newly tightened restrictions.

He added that the city could go as far as to suspend the business license of anyone found to be in violation public health measures.