GUYSBOROUGH: Officials with the Municipality of the District of Guysborough have established their own novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic plan.
Among other things, the plan identifies “critical municipal operations, key considerations and communication goals.”
Councillors approved the plan during March’s regular municipal meeting, which was moved forward to March 16.
Following the meeting, Guysborough’s Warden, Vernon Pitts explained how the municipality’s senior staff had been working diligently constructing the plan, even before the pandemic spread to Nova Scotia.
“That’s been in the works for a number of months – it’s gathering a lot of information, it takes time,” he said. “We knew we were going to have to come up with it, and it just so happened it coincided with what’s going on today in the world.”
Pitts highlighted the plan – which consists of details of the plan’s activation, employee support, a communications checklist, and human resources management – would have been ready within the next few weeks but they streamlined it based on current global
He said the municipality needed to be prepared, which they now are and they hope everyone else can be as well.
“People [have] got to take this seriously. This is not the flu, it is not the common cold; this stuff is deadly,” Pitts said. “It can actually kill you. Take responsibility for your own actions, and let’s get ahead of it now, rather than fall behind afterwards.”
The municipal office was closed for a deep cleaning March 17 and 18 and re-opened to employees on March 19, but all municipal buildings will remain closed to members of the public until further notice.
Staff can be contacted by e-mail with contacts available on the municipality’s Web site or by phone at 902-533-3705.
“Our priority during a pandemic is to keep local government and nursing home operations functioning as long as it is safe to do so,” the plan reads. “Non-essential services may be restricted in order to focus on providing the most necessary services to our residents.”
Municipal officials added all non-essential meetings and organized-related travel outside the municipality will be cancelled, with only the most-essential travel, as determined by the CAO or Deputy CAO will be permitted, and regular council meetings will only be held on an as-needed basis.