HALIFAX, N.S. — The mayor’s office in Halifax has been shut down because of a possible link to COVID-19.
“It’s a precaution,” Mayor Mike Savage said Thursday evening.
“One of our staff has a relative who was out of the province at a conference where there was a confirmed case so out of caution they informed all of the people who attended the conference to watch out for symptoms.”
The mayor’s staffer informed her office colleagues about the possible link.
“We had a little discussion around it and figured the best thing to do would be to send everybody home until that person is tested,” Savage said.
“I feel fine and I think most of the staff feel fine so I fully expect that we’ll get a good test result and we’ll be able to get back to work.”
Shaune MacKinlay, the mayor’s chief of staff, said late Thursday afternoon that there is no direct link, “so we are erring on the side of caution here.”
Second-floor city hall office singled out
A number of people are taking themselves out of the public in the short term. That’s what we’re doing. We’re not panicked about it
- Mayor Mike Savage
MacKinlay said six people in addition to the mayor work in the second-floor office in city hall. The office crew consists of three administrative staff, a senior policy adviser, the mayor’s special assistant, Savage and MacKinlay.
“Late morning,” MacKinlay said of when the office learned of the possible link.
“We made a couple of calls to see what was the right thing to do, then we packed it up.”
MacKinlay said the mayor and staff will work from home Friday.
“We’ll wait to learn a bit more and hope that this is a false alarm but we don’t want to minimize it and we want to make sure that we are exercising the same kind of caution we would expect others to exercise on our behalf.”
Savage said the person who had travelled out of province was calling to get an appointment for testing and after the test, it would take about 24 hours to get results back.
“It’s not a confirmed case, people shouldn’t think it is,” Savage said. “It’s because I spend a lot of time out in the public, if there are any further steps to be taken, we’ll let people know.”
MacKinlay said if it’s determined the person seeking testing does not have the virus, “then we’re back in business.”
The mayor said the office has been cleaned and disinfected.
“Anybody that we’ve had contact with, we’ve talked to and eventually word would get out that something was going on and I just wanted people to know that this is all out of an abundance of precaution,” Savage said.
“ A number of people are taking themselves out of the public in the short term. That’s what we’re doing. We’re not panicked about it, we’re not sitting at home moaning about it, we’re just trying to deal with this in the most effective way.”
MacKinlay said she is not aware of any plans to shut down the offices of chief administrative officer Jacques Dube and the 16 councillors who work on the same floor as the mayor’s office and the floor above.
“That’s something for the administration to determine,” MacKinlay said. “We made a decision around our office and anything further would be a decision of the CAO.”
