Vernon city council meets on Monday, April 27, 2020, with social distancing.

(BEN BULMER / iNFOnews.ca)

Vernon councillor Scott Anderson has asked the City to write a letter to the province asking for a timeline of when the B.C. economy will reopen.

"The provincial government needs to open the economy responsibly soon or we're not going to have anything to come back to," Anderson said yesterday, April 27, at a council meeting.

"I'm a little concerned about it because the initial plan was to flatten the curve so that our ICUs and our hospitals didn't get overrun, but as of now the hospitals are essentially empty and... we've totally flattened the curve and the curve is now going down, so we have to start thinking about reopening the economy," Anderson said.

Anderson put forward a motion to write to the province and the motion passed unanimously without any debate.

He said other provinces, referring to Saskatchewan and Alberta, as well as regions across the United States and Europe, were all talking about some sort of plan to open the economy.

"With the notable exception of B.C." Anderson said.

Less than two hours after Anderson put forward the motion B.C. provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry told a press conference she was focussed on the next steps which will roll out "slowly, thoughtfully, and safely" and allow businesses to reopen again.

"People in B.C. are waiting to make sure we’re not going too fast and not going to undo all the work and sacrifice of recent months," Henry said.

Currently, there have been almost 2,000 confirmed COVID-19 cases in B.C. and 103 fatalities. Nationwide there have been 49,000 COVID-19 cases and 2,766 fatalities.

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