Regina police chief explains ticket for COVID-19 violation

Regina’s police chief says the woman who was fined for violating the public health order regarding COVID-19 had her chances to avoid the $2,800 ticket.

Chief Evan Bray told the Greg Morgan Morning Show on Wednesday that attempts were made to get the 23-year-old to self-isolate after she had tested positive for the virus. She chose to ignore the warnings.

“We had quite a few interactions with this young lady over a period of a couple of days and there were multiple attempts to try to have her self-isolate,” Bray said. “It was clear it wasn’t working and so we had to ultimately not only do the enforcement but take her into custody to ensure that she did self-isolate over the period of time that was required.”

The public health order requires people who test positive for COVID-19 to go into quarantine for 14 days. The same self-isolation period is required for those who have been in close contact with someone who tested positive and for those who have returned from international travel.

When the 23-year-old woman didn’t follow the order, she was picked up and put into self-isolation.

“There is a facility that has been set up and is a place where police or any official that is going to be making some sort of arrest or enforcement on this order can isolate a person until they are symptom-free,” Bray said. “So that’s where this young lady is going to be held.”

The Regina Police Service issued a media release Monday saying the woman had received a ticket for violating the public health order, but didn’t say who she was, where she had been or why she was being fined.

An update Tuesday explained the reason for the ticket, but didn’t provide any other details.

Bray admitted Wednesday there may be circumstances where the public should receive more information about people who potentially could spread the virus, but this wasn’t one of those cases.

“This was a fairly quick turnaround from the time that we knew that she left the location where she was safe — and where the public was safe — until the time that we found her again,” Bray said. “It wasn’t like she was necessarily wandering around in a highly populated area. We ended up making an arrest in a house …

“If we’ve got someone who is not following an order and leaves and we can’t locate them, we do have to somehow get the public to help us be aware, keep themselves safe and maybe ultimately help us in locating the person. (It’s) no different than we would (with) someone else who is out in the public on a potential warrant that we think is a danger to the public.”

With Easter weekend on the horizon, Bray said the police are asking the public to help out by limiting gatherings to the prescribed maximum number of people or by connecting in some way other than in person.

The provincial government has asked the same of residents and Bray believes they’ll listen to the pleas from authorities.

“The motivating factor here for us in our community and our province is that things are going well comparatively,” Bray said in reference to the number of COVID-19 cases. “If you look across Canada, there are some real challenges.

“We’re managing to keep our numbers fairly low and that’s not just happening by accident. It’s happening because people are being careful, people are self-isolating and people are not putting themselves or their community at risk.

“This weekend, unfortunately, you might have to hide your own Easter eggs.”