EDMONTON -- Edmontonians appeared well behaved this weekend.
In their patrols, city peace officers counted some 2,800 people in 183 public spaces like parks, playgrounds and off-leash areas.
Not a single ticket was issued; According to the city, most Edmontonians were obeying local and provincial laws.
Even the majority of 58 warnings issued by peace officers went to dog owners – not Edmontonians who were disobeying the two-metre physical distancing order.
But some say city residents still don't get it.
"There are some people that go really far to the side of the sidewalk to make sure that they’re giving space, and then there are some people that just barrel down the middle of the sidewalk," downtown resident Sarah Moore commented.
Frustrated, she usually just distances herself.
"I wasn’t sure how to handle coming down here and seeing people grouping all the time," Moore said.
"Do you want to be that one? But at the same time, I really think it’s valuable to be following the social distancing guidelines."
Last week, between April 13 and 19, the city received 114 complaints related to physical distancing concerns.
Albertans can also report to Alberta Health Services. Since the start of the month, AHS says it has received 10,085 COVID-19 related complaints and requests.
As of April 1, complaints related to a business or public place disobeying a restriction more than doubled any other complaint made to AHS online. Additionally, More than 600 complaints were received in each of these categories: an individual breaking the rules, a mass gathering, and a workplace failing to follow the orders.
The provincial chief medical officer of health reiterated Tuesday her direction is for Edmontonians to avoid contact with people they don't live with.
"The challenge comes in that definition of contact. So I think if neighbours are outside standing on their porches and chatting with each other, or going for a social distance walk where they’re always farther apart than two meters, again, those are low risk activities," Dr. Deena Hinshaw said.
"The challenge comes when people start to pre-plan gatherings and have lots of people going to where they don’t normally live."
ALBERTA ‘CAN’T LET UP’ SAYS ER DOC
An emergency physician says the larger challenge was not for Alberta to issue the orders in the first place, but will be to motivate the public to continue following them for the months ahead.
And it will be necessary, Dr. Louis Francescutti said.
“You can’t let up. Because the moment that you let up, these outbreaks that we’re seeing, whether it’s at the Cargill meat plant or that we’re seeing in long term residences, that could happen in society in general, and that would be a disaster because there’s just not enough capacity.”
Also a professor at the University of Alberta Public School of Health, Francescutti said the key is implementing multiple strategies: engineering, such as creating a vaccine; enforcement, like Alberta is upholding public health orders; and perhaps most importantly, education.
Health and government officials effectively need to build trust with Albertans every day through repeated messaging, updates, and transparency in their mistakes and corrections. He added messaging should be targeted by audience: for example, teenagers, who have less capacity to assess risk.
And the public needs to realize that there will be some who they feel are endangering the public and for those individuals, education is still the best strategy.
“Develop a little bit of tack and diplomacy in how to make concerns known to the other individual so they can learn from it as well,” Francescutti advised.
“‘Excuse me, but your cough may be related to the virus or not, but would you be able to either wear a mask when you go out or could you cough into your sleeve? Because it concerns me.’ That’s polite,” he modelled.
Don’t entertain an argument, the doctor added. “That response tells you what kind of person that is already.”
His last piece of advice was to urge Edmontonians to take advantage – with physical distancing – of their river valley, Canada’s largest urban park.
“Walking in greenery and walking outside and being in the sunlight is so therapeutic. Like, it’s got more therapy than a lot of medications… It doesn’t cost you a thing.”
In the meantime, Edmonton is mapping the complaints it receives so peace officers can monitor hot spots more closely.
Complaints of more serious violations are forwarded onto Alberta Health Services. The city said a health compliance task team it sits on, along with AHS, and Edmonton police and firefighting services, has sent 409 complaints to AHS since April 6.
Of those, 347 had been resolved as of April 17, with just two tickets being handed to a non-essential business and an individual.
With a report from CTV News Edmonton's Jeremy Thompson
