The Gander and Area Chamber of Commerce has sent a letter to the Chief Medical Officer of Health asking for her department to look into lessening COVID restrictions and lockdowns for areas outside the metro region that are not currently dealing with an outbreak, so hard-hit businesses can get some relief.
The chair of the business organization, Sheldon Handcock, says they represent around 300 members and they are hearing from many of their members whose businesses are in dire situations due to having to fully shut down or scale back operations.
He says New Brunswick has taken a zoning approach that allows areas not dealing with high numbers of COVID to move around more freely and feels as though Newfoundland could look at a similar situation.
Handcock says business owners were well into a recovery period before the province moved back into Alert Level 5 this month and things were finally starting to lighten up a little bit. Now business owners are at a point where the rainy day money has dried up and he says companies are telling the Chamber of Commerce that they don’t know if they will survive a second lockdown.
See letter and story: https://vocm.com/2021/02/25/121155/
