The Interior Health Authority’s lack of information over COVID-19 infections has a Kamloops councilor feeling angry and frustrated.

After an outbreak in Revelstoke, their mayor has been the main source of information for both the media and British Columbians.

While on the NL Morning News, Dale Bass was asked how the communication lines are between our city council and the IHA. “I am the wrong person to ask that question because I am not an IHA fan right now.”

“We don’t get that kind of information, we get what Dr Henry tells us. As far I understand from talking with the mayor we are not getting the kind of information that we feel we should be getting, that would help our citizens understand that COVID is here.”

She’s tired of being kept in the dark. “I had a friend call me last week who was surprised there were four people in hospital with COVID and I had to tell her there have been people in RIH since it began with COVID, we just don’t know because we’re not being told. So, I’m not IHA fan these days.”

Bass said most people in the city have no idea where we stand as far as COVID-19 infections go. “Had all of Kamloops known at the beginning that ya, COVID was here, I had friends and people I don’t even know say ‘Well we don’t have it in our city because we haven’t been told we have it in our city.’ But we did. I have a nurse friend who was emailing me at night telling me how horrible it was at RIH because there were so many cases but we didn’t know it as a general population.”

She says had there been full transparency from the beginning, people’s attitudes toward the pandemic might be different. “Had we known that I think people might have been more apt to be careful and might have had the that care ingrained in themselves even now.”

As far as the reasons she’s been given for the lack of communication, Bass isn’t buying it. “At one point I was told it was ‘privacy concerns’. The definition of privacy concern has changed through the years to be pretty much, ‘Well we don’t want to tell you so we’re going to say it’s privacy concerns’.

“If there were, say for example, in April there were 16 cases of COVID in the city and they told us that, that would have had a different impact on the public than not knowing that. There’s no privacy issue there, they’re 16 people in a city of 95,000. Who are they? We don’t know.”

Bass wonders if officials might be keeping secrets on purpose. “Perhaps it’s just that they’re so overloaded that they just don’t want to do it on our area. I don’t know. I just feel that it could have been handled better and should have been handled better.”