The Community
Press Lest We Forget
Volume 113, Issue 20
Wednesday, November 11, 2020
$1 Including GST
No Stone Left Alone - Alliance Cemetery’s veterans final resting spots recognized
Recently the Alliance Legion branch, through its president Lorne Goodrich, marked the gravesites of every known veteran in the Alliance Cemetery with a Canadian flag and poppy. Goodrich created a special display for the columbarium to honour 16 veterans marked there alone, with over 30 gravesites decorated in all. See the story P14.
Alberta’s COVID-19 numbers continue to rise Important updates for travellers; new grant funds announced for faith and cultural facilities Leslie Cholowsky Editor
Alberta Health reported another 713 new COVID-19 cases on Tuesday, Nov. 10, bringing Alberta’s active case number to 8,090. There are 207 people in hospital, with 43 of those in Intensive Care, and now 376 total COVID-19 related deaths. The Province is reporting two active cases in Flagstaff County, one in Beaver County, and one in the MD of Wainwright. Camrose County has four active cases, and the City of Camrose is at 25, putting it on the Enhanced Watch list. News came out last week that the City of Camrose was classified as a ‘watch’ area, effective Nov. 3, and Camrose City Council enacted a mandatory mask and face covering bylaw. The new bylaw requires residents and visitors to Camrose to use face coverings for all individuals over the age of 10 in all public spaces and civic facilities in the City of Camrose. Effective Friday, Nov. 6, the city came under further restrictions by the province, with social gatherings limited to 15 people for parties, banquets, wedding receptions, funeral receptions, retirement functions, and all private social gatherings. The new limits do not affect in-person dining in restaurants, theatres, conferences, worship services,
wedding ceremonies, funeral ceremonies, sport audiences, fitness centres, or sports teams. The province has enforced mandatory public health measures on all regions on the watch list (with cases at or over 10 and with infection rates higher than 50 cases per 100,000 people), with a 15-person limit on social gatherings, and has instituted voluntary measures to limit cohort groups to three and wear masks at workplaces. The Province continues to promote its ABTraceTogether app, which is integrated with provincial contact tracing. Alberta officials say the federal app would require considerable work to be integrated into their system. Secure contact tracing is an effective tool to stop the spread by notifying people who were exposed to a confirmed case, so they can be tested and isolated. The province says that early issues that plagued the app, especially for iPhone users, have been fixed so the app can run in the background of all mobile devices. The app does not access the users contacts, it works via bluetooth, recording only contacts with other app users. If a user tests positive, they voluntarily share app information, (up to that point, no information is shared between those who have the app and Alberta Health) identifying only other app users tagged through the app as being within bluetooth range for a specific time
period, who are then notified using the information they provided when the app was activated. The app does not tap into contact lists or social media friends lists in any way, and has been rated by websites like snopes.com as one of the least-invasive contact tracing applications. Around 261,000 Albertans are presently using the app. The province introduced a new Faith-based and Cultural Facility Relaunch Grant on Monday, Nov. 9, available to offset costs related to following public health measures and ensure religious and cultural gatherings can continue safely. Organizations can apply for up to $5,000 per facility to offset the costs incurred to follow public health measures. Eligible expenses include PPE, cleaning supplies and services, contactless dispensers, translation and printing services for health-related signage, small facility space changes to allow for physical distancing and increased ventilation, and technology upgrades for online delivery of services. This one-time grant will cover costs incurred from April 1, 2020, to March 1, 2021. Applications will be processed following the first deadline of Dec. 15 and after the program closes on March 1, 2021, to ensure organizations that have already incurred costs related to COVID-19 can be reimbursed as quickly as possible.