Northern B.C. desperate to avoid COVID-19 outbreaks in their communities

CHETWYND (NEWS 1130) – They may be hundreds of kilometres away from B.C.’s COVID outbreak epicentre, but northern communities are desperate to keep the virus out.

The towns and cities across the north have small populations and have vast distances between them. In a way, those factors help insulate them from the outbreak. But if cases start cropping up in remote areas, accessing medical help is going to be more challenging.

Allen Courtoreille is the mayor of Chetwynd. It’s a town that’s three hours north of Prince George, and an hour away from the nearest city, Dawson Creek.

He says they definitely don’t want the virus to spring up in his small town, because their hospital can’t handle complicated cases.

“We’d probably have to send them up to Fort St John. That’s an hour and a half away. I believe we may have one or two ventilators here, but that would tie up the nurses. We don’t have that kind of staffing.”

He says the fact that the local rec centre and restaurants are closed, brings the urgency of the situation close to home.

And he says residents are feeling vulnerable.

One thing they’re worried about, he says, is whether shift workers that are employed by Conuma Coal’s two Chetwynd sites could inadvertently introduce the virus into the town. Courtoreille points out many of the employees come and go from other parts of BC and Canada.

“We had a few questions put to us and that was one of the concerns brought up. As a provincial law, workers are not restricted in that way.”

He’s encouraged by the fact the company has reduced the number of workers transported on buses to work sites, to maintain social distancing.

He is frustrated, though, that the province won’t say exactly where the 12 cases confirmed in the region have cropped up.

“Who do we know in the north that has the coronavirus? Does anybody know? Is it in Chetwynd? Is in Dawson Creek or Tumbler Ridge? Where is it?”

It’s a frustration shared by the former chief medical health officer for Northern Health, Dr. David Bowering, who also believes individual communities need to know whether COVID-19 has surfaced.

Courtoreille admits there would be some ‘hysteria’ if someone in their midst tested positive. It’s a small town, and news would get around quickly, he says.

Meantime, resource towns like Chetwynd are being impacted by COVID-19 in other ways.

Earlier this week, West Fraser announced it was shutting down its BC sawmills for one week, starting Monday. That affects about one hundred employees in Chetwynd. The sawmill run by Canfor, on the other hand, stays open, while other locations are being closed for two weeks.

Both forestry companies site changing global market conditions as the reason behind the temporary closures.