Black Diamond Parade cancelled

Two much-anticipated spring events in Black Diamond are not going ahead in effort to prevent group gatherings.

Black Diamond’s Emergency Co-ordination Centre made the call on April 13 to cancel next month’s Project Green Day community clean up and June’s Diamond Valley Parade in a proactive measure to prevent the spread of COVID-19.

“It’s in support of the Medical Officers of Health allowing only 15 people to gather,” said Jamie Campbell, director of Emergency Management. “It’s very difficult to socially distance at events like that, especially when you get into warm weather, so it’s just easy to make the decision now than to wait until the 11^th hour. We weren’t the first community to cancel events and we won’t be the last.”

With little knowledge of where Alberta will be in terms of COVID-19 cases by early June, Campbell said the decision to cancel the parade had to be made.

“To make the preparations for our parade is quite a bit of co-ordinating in the background and we didn’t want people putting a lot of effort in to then find out at the last minute that we’re not going to do it,” he said. “You have to secure bands and washroom facilities and organize things and line up volunteers and all those things that have to go into that preparation, and we just aren’t comfortable that we’re going to be in a position where we can even do that.”

The centre’s decision to cancel the event is about reducing opportunities for people to gather, Campbell said.

“If people stop moving, the virus stops moving and then it dies because it’s got nowhere to go,” he said. “The reason we’re in the situation we’re in is because people didn’t stop moving.”

Social distancing is even more critical now considering the Medical Officers of Health’s most recent concerns, Campbell said.

“If you listen to the Medical Officers of Health’s newest thoughts, there may be people walking around that are asymptomatic - they don’t show any symptoms but they’re COVID positive,” he said. “If it’s being spread with people who are asymptomatic they won’t even know to self-isolate. Your only defence is social distancing.”

Tammy Rollie, OkotoksToday.ca

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