There are now fewer reasons for people in COVID-19 hot spots to come to Chatham-Kent following a new municipal directive aimed at preventing the spread of COVID-19.
The Municipality of Chatham-Kent issued a notice on Thursday that facilities will no longer accept new bookings from people in regions that are under a lockdown or in the red zone of the province's COVID-19 response framework.
The municipal decision comes after a recommendation was made by Chatham-Kent Medical Officer of Health Dr. David Colby.
Bookings at local facilities will not be accepted from people who live in red or lockdown areas until further notice. However, existing ice contracts will be honoured.
“Most organizations are conducting their own self-monitoring of the risks to ensure that those team members in yellow zones are not exposed to team members in the red or lockdown zone," said Parks, Recreation and Cemeteries Director Jeff Bray. "This is a best practice that we encourage across the board for all ice users.”
Chief Administrative Officer Don Shropshire said we all have a shared responsibility to keep people safe. Shropshire hopes local event organizers police themselves to prevent people from coming from other jurisdictions trying to evade their rules.
"We're trying to find a way to balance between respecting current registrations and not exposing our residents to additional risks," said Shropshire. "It is absolutely inappropriate for someone to say well screw that, we’re just going to go across the border and book someplace else. It's basically transferring the risk to the other people in Chatham-Kent. The reason they're being asked not to go to the rink is because some very wise person has said it's too dangerous, like, take a break."
Colby said it doesn't do anybody any good to allow the situation in Windsor-Essex to spill over into Chatham-Kent.
"That's bad news for hockey teams but I can understand what they're thinking. Oh, we're not going to have ice, we have to find some somewhere else, the game must go on,” said Colby. “Well, sometimes in crisis the game doesn't go on.”
In order to enforce the new booking rules, Chatham-Kent residents may be asked to provide photo identification in order to enter municipal facilities.
DriveTest Centres have also recently been directed by the Ministry of Transportation to stop booking road tests from COVID-19 lockdown zones.
