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By Liam Verster
One Year Under COVID-19

Mayor, Reeve look back on year of COVID-19

Mar 13, 2021 | 11:33 AM

It’s been a full year since the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 to be a global pandemic, and the leaders of the City and County of Grande Prairie are reflecting on the past 12 months.

Mayor for the City of Grande Prairie, Jackie Clayton, says looking back on the year, she has been really proud of the strength, resiliency, and flexibility shown by members of the community.

Clayton says she was especially proud of the work the Grande Prairie Emergency Response Partnership (GPREP) did to coordinate and provide support for the residents and businesses in the Grande Prairie area.

“That collaborative regional response was very important. It was the longest activation in GPREP’s history, but through that we are able to put programs in place for when the numbers were reached that we were able to deactivate the GPREP status,” says Clayton.

Leanne Beaupre, Reeve for the County of Grande Prairie, echoes the sentiment that GPREP was well used during the first wave of the pandemic.

“I think one of the things that we can be most proud of is the response that we had from that partnership and our partners in this region that responded, whether it was initially to help roll out the toilet paper shortage that we had,” says Beaupre.

“Laughing or joking aside, the Village of Hythe at one point was not receiving any shipments of toilet paper, and so GPREP actually helped facilitate toilet paper to the community.”

She adds GPREP also helped people who were shut-in during the first wave to access prescriptions and food.

Another highlight from the past year Clayton points to is the work done to support residents and businesses, including providing free transit; the work done through the Business Resiliency Task Force; and finding ways to safely run initiatives and events such as food bank donations and mental health support programs.

Both the City and County take directives on implementing public health measures from the Provincial Government, as neither municipality has health experts on their staff like the province does.

Beaupre says she has been impressed with the way the province has handled the pandemic so far.

“We really do appreciate the response by Alberta Health and the Province of Alberta and the direction that they gave us. It really set the path for how the County responded,” says Beaupre.

“In this situation, it was one of those where nobody really had a good understanding of how many days or what direction things were going to go, so having that clear direction from both the Province and the Chief Medical Officer has been beneficial to the County of Grande Prairie.”

Moving forward, Clayton says the health and safety of the community remains a priority, and following the guidelines will help to reach the re-opening goals set by the province.

“People are tired about talking about COVID, they’re tired of COVID overall, but there’s still concerns with getting to those goals and people need to continue to follow those provincial standards in order for use to get to those goals as quickly as possible.”

Clayton adds it’s also important to get vaccinated against the novel coronavirus as soon as possible.

Beaupre also says it’s important to continue to follow the provincial health guidelines and get vaccinated, adding that because the demographics for both the City and County of Grande Prairie are more heavily weighed towards the 30-45 year range, she would like to see the rollout happen on a bigger, broader scale.

“I’m really hopeful that things start to ramp up with the vaccine rollout, especially as you hear that more and more vaccines are becoming available through different sources. I’m hopeful that Alberta Health Services recognizes that the vaccines that are more stable are able to be administered by other agencies rather than just public health, and we’ll see a larger demographic that’s able to access [the doses].”

Clayton says during this past year she has learned that there is a need to be resilient and flexible from this pandemic that could be brought forward in the case of another large scale event such as this, with an emphasis on being able to work with others.

“We have learned a lot from this and in the future I think we will take this learning as a great opportunity to continue to grow and make plans that will be beneficial to the region going forward.

Beaupre says she learned a lot through helping individuals, businesses and organizations, and will take that knowledge forward in the event of another global crisis.

by Liam Verster