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Savary Islanders seeking isolation

Request made to limit travel
savary
Savary Island. Dean van't Schip photo

The following is request made by the Association Savary Island Committee (ASIC), requesting people to cease all non-essential travel to Savary Island.

The province has declared a state of emergency, and the qathet Regional District has activated the emergency operations centre. The federal and provincial governments are asking that people stay home if they can, to help stop the spread of COVID-19.

For the safety of our community, ASIC is urging people to refrain from any non-essential travel to Savary Island at this time.

Savary is isolated and therefore vulnerable in emergency situations. A large health crisis on the island would be impossible to manage. From everything we are learning, it is clear that COVID-19 could easily become that crisis.

We include messages here from fire chief Chris Philpott, and Lund Water Taxi requesting that people refrain from coming to Savary.

Doug Dalzell, ASIC president

As the fire chief of the Savary Island Volunteer Fire Dept, I totally agree with the request from Lund Water Taxi regarding non-essential travel to Savary Island. Our first responder resources and training are limited to basic patient care and our self-protection on island. And the difficulty in transporting an infected patient to hospital makes the situation significantly worse. Please let us all endeavour to stay safe and healthy by self-isolating and staying at home.
Chris Philpott, SIVFD fire chief 

Dear Lund Water Taxi Customers,

With the spread of COVID-19 around the world and in British Columbia, we are becoming increasingly aware of the risk to our staff and customers.

We provide an essential service to the isolated community of Savary Island. It is the goal of our business to continue to provide this service, and we will do everything we can to maintain it. That being said, we request that at this time, everyone refrain from non-essential travel to and from Savary.

Many people have been travelling to Savary in the past weeks for vacation. While we want to continue to serve you, we are concerned about the spread of this virus in our community.

It is our mutual responsibility to do everything we can to stop the spread of COVID-19, and for this reason we are asking you not to travel to and from Savary unless it is absolutely necessary at this time. We want to keep our staff, customers, and community safe. This is not possible if Savary is inundated with people.

Thank you for your understanding in these difficult times. Stay home, stay well.

Lund Water Taxi