Egland scores Teddy Bear Toss goal but Pats lose in OT
3h ago
Over 3,000 stuffed animals were tossed onto the ice.
The City of Regina hasn’t had to deal with staff shortages due to COVID-19, but plans are in place if that situation should arise.
City manager Chris Holden said there have been reports across the country about municipalities that are dealing with staffing shortages. But Regina has avoided that — for now.
“We’ve been fortunate at this point that we haven’t had significant numbers of staff being off being sick or with COVID,” Holden said. “I think our numbers are probably a couple of weeks behind what is going on in some of the other provinces and other cities.”
Holden said the city is monitoring the COVID-19 situation in the province closely.
“We have the plans in place. Fingers crossed we don’t have to actually enact them or if we do, it’s to a very limited degree,” Holden said.
Holden said there are about 2,000 employees who work for the city at this time of the year in a variety of roles.
He said transit, emergency services, and looking after city infrastructure are where some of the biggest risks remain for service disruptions.
“We’ve got to make sure we’ve got contingency plans in place,” Holden said. “We’ve got to look at mitigation strategies (and) service level reductions if need be.
“If it was transit (affected) for example, we would probably have to reduce the schedules. We would look at frequency. In some of our leisure centres, we may have to reduce hours.
“We have a plan in place and it would just be a matter of saying we are at this level of risk now or we’ve actually (got) this many employees who provide that service and have to make that service level adjustment.”
Holden said the city has been taking measures throughout the pandemic to try and reduce the impact if an employee tests positive for COVID.
“(We’d use) staggering shifts (and) having people work in cohorts,” Holden added. “We have vaccination requirements in place for staff, we’re promoting booster shots now (and) we’re encouraging people to use the rapid tests that the province has made available.”