Ash-Creek News Episode 2 May 1st Today’s COVID numbers bring us to a total of 174 cases in the Interior Health Region. There are still outbreaks in seniors homes and in two poultry processing plants in the lower mainland. BC Premier John Horgan said Wednesday that schools would not have “a regular return to education until September”. A completed plan needs to be in place before schools can safety re-open for learning.

Surgeries will be starting to take place again. This will be challenging according to Adrian Dix. There have been 10000 cancelled surgeries over the last three months that will all need to be rescheduled. COVID testing is available in Ashcroft through Public Health. Anyone experiencing symptoms can contact 811 to be per-screened and be provided more information about how to get tested.

The Ashcroft Family Medical Clinic is still supporting patients over the phone or via video conference. In-office visits will only be used if needed. The Clinic is experiencing higher than normal call volume, so patients are asked to continue to call back until their call is answered. There are two doctors at the clinic still accepting new patients.

The Province of BC is providing a one time $1,000 payment to eligible residents to help offset the costs of COVID-19. Most people that have been approved for the Federal CERB fund are eligible for the BC funding. Applications for this payment are available starting today.

Vancouver has had some legal protests about the re-opening of the economy over the last week. The main talking point of the protest was that “now that we have flattened the cure, lets not kill our economy or our food industry” and “measures being taken to stop the pandemic are far worse than the pandemic itself”. The problem is not the growing of the food, it’s the processing of the food to grocery store standards, and so are having to destroy crops or dump milk. The Processing plants are closed down, so there is no place for the food to be processed. There is fear that the price of groceries will go up due to the supply and demand problems this is causing.

Cache Creek is still on Stage 4 water restrictions. Only one of the water wells is being used due to the floods, so residents are asked to limit water use to essential use only. Water levels of the Bonaparte and Cache Creek are expected to rise over the next two days. The state of emergency for the village has been extended to allow all work to continue to mitigate flooding. Evacuation alerts remain for properties along the Bonaparte River.