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Kamloops and the three biggest cities in the Okanagan are preparing for the event that they lose a significant portion of their workforce should the highly infectious COVID Omicron variant spread.

David Trawin, chief administrative officer with the City of Kamloops, said the city is creating plans in the event each department loses 30% of its workforce.

Any external meetings are now being conducted via Zoom and the city is encouraging people to work from home full time, he said.

With snow removal, the focus will be on main routes and the city may not get to side streets and cul-de-sacs if they see a decrease in staff. Firefighters may not attend to low-priority calls where they can verify that no one is hurt. Building inspections may also take longer, he said, adding these are the things the city is discussing.

As of Jan. 6, there has been no impact to city services due to COVID-19.

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Kelowna city manager Doug Gilchrist said at the moment there are about 12 staff with COVID-19 out of 1,100, so numbers are still low and no impacts have been made to city operations.

Additional protocols in the city are back in place, like encouraging working from home and continuity plans are in place focusing on essential services should more employees need to take time off.

“So far, so good,” Gilchrist said.

Christy Poirier, communications manager with the City of Vernon, said they are “planning for business continuity, should the need arise across the corporation because of impacts from the COVID-19 virus; however, to date, we have not had any operational impacts.”

Angela Campbell, acting general manager of finance with the City of Penticton, said there are about six people who are either sick or isolating which is pretty standard.

"I think every place is concerned about how the impact of this variant could be on their business but we are doing everything we can to prevent that from happening," Campbell said, adding most of staff are vaccinated and they've recently updated their communicable disease plan with new provincial guidelines as well as site specific plans that will ensure essential services can be provided in the event of an outbreak.

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The Penticton Fire Department's plan has been designed with the fire chief and workers are in cohorts, so if there is an outbreak it won't impact the whole firefighting work force, she said.

All members of Penticton council and 99% of staff are in compliance with the new policy mandating COVID-19 vaccines. The city’s active workforce includes 331 staff members.

Over the next few weeks, the city is meeting with staff who are not in compliance and review requests for accommodation, according to a City of Penticton news release. Following this phase, staff who are not fully vaccinated or do not have an approved accommodation plan, will not be permitted to report to a city facility or worksite.

Last week, provincial heath officer Dr. Bonnie Henry said everyone in B.C. will likely be exposed to Omicron.

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