Image Credit: CFJC Today

By Jill Sperling

COVID-19

Event cancellations, extra precautions announced as Kamloops prepares for COVID-19

Mar 12, 2020 | 4:33 PM

KAMLOOPS — The novel coronavirus has sparked a domino reaction of event cancellations around the world.

Major professional sports leagues have suspended their seasons and large conferences and entertainment events, like the Juno Awards, have been cancelled.

In Kamloops, the cancellations are trickling in.

“I understand the Gathering of Our Voices conference next week, which was a provincial conference in Kamloops, very significant in terms of numbers has just been cancelled,” said Mayor Ken Christian.

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The Canadian Hockey League (CHL) has also suspended its season, which means there will be no more Blazers games until further notice.

Sprott Shaw College has announced a cancellation of all public events, including any planned for the Kamloops campus.

“There has been no closures provincially or federally they have not recommended school closures,” said Sprott Shaw President Victor Tesan. “Irrespective of that, we’ve been building our plan that should we need to or should we make the decision to move to online delivery, we’re going to move forward with that.”

At Thompson Rivers University, a pandemic planning committee is communicating with health agencies and the university has increased the frequency of cleaning.

There has been no word on whether any classes or events will be cancelled.

The City of Kamloops is enacting its Pandemic Influenza Preparedness Plan, which begins with appointing a team and closely monitoring the situation.

“We’ve had that for over a decade,” Christian said, “back to the SARS era actually, and Dan Sutherland, our Assistant Chief with Kamloops Fire Rescue leads that area and Mr. Trawin, our chief administrative officer and Ms. Heshka, our director of communications will be quite involved in that. I will serve as the spokesperson for civic matters.”

Christian says the city will determine whether changes need to be made to recreational programs at city facilities.

“At this point it’s business as usual,” he said, “but certainly we are planning in terms of disinfecting and those kind of things that we’re conscious of our staff and their health and we’re also conscious of opportunities to work from home if that might be a situation that occurs.”

According to the BC Centre for Disease Control, the symptoms of coronavirus are coughing, sneezing, fever, sore throat and difficulty breathing.

Anyone who has symptoms and has been travelling or in close contact with someone who has contracted COVID-19 should call a health care facility before making an in-person visit.

Provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry announced today that the province is advising against any non-essential travel outside of Canada, and event organizers are asked to cancel any gatherings of more than 250 people.