McCall Residents and Visitors,

City Council met yesterday, March 16th, 2020, and unanimously voted to approve a Declaration of State of Emergency for the City of McCall for the next 30 days in response to the COVID-19 Coronavirus pandemic. The declaration allows access to federal, state local supplemental funding and decision-making resources for the purpose of protecting the health and safety of the community. Although one goal of a declaration is to alert citizens to change their normal behavior, this does not mean there is a mass outbreak in the city of McCall, but a proactive measure enabling necessary emergency planning.

We continue to keep a close watch on the developing situation with regard to the Coronavirus COVID-19 and how it is affecting our region and are following the lead of the President and the Governor in our response to the pandemic. We are actively following the most recent recommendations of the CDC and Central District health in decision making as we move forward. We encourage the public to also follow the most recent guidelines of maintaining gathering limitations of less than 10 people at a time, limiting social situations and maintaining good hygiene.

McCall is a tourist destination with many vacation and second homes. We are at an increased risk of exposure and therefore, we hope that our visitors will respect our community's goal to remain proactive by adhering to CDC recommendations. Help us to keep McCall healthy and safe for all. Local business can let us know here how they have altered hours or services and we will share that with the community and visitors.

Staff at McCall City Hall has enhanced efforts to ensure a safe environment with an even deeper attention to detail of daily deep cleanings in all buildings. We encourage the public to refrain from visiting any public spaces, facilities or public meeting events if sick. Public facilities include any recreation programs, public library events, city council or committee meetings, etc.

We've created a website at www.mccall.id.us/safetyfirst that you can follow for local up-to-date information with regard to our city, including the status of individual programs, meetings and events.

We also encourage all citizens to enroll in the County’s Emergency Alert Notifications System Code Red to receive important information quickly, efficiently and accurately.

If you would like to participate in a city activity or event without attending in-person please contact us (208-634-7142) to see if we can make any special arrangements for you using on-hand technology. Please check our website calendar to make sure planned events are still happening and haven’t been cancelled to adhere to the CDH recommendations.

We encourage all our neighbors to practice good prevention techniques such as:

• Staying home when sick and contacting your health provider for instructions
• Following the CDC and CDH recommendations to include washing hands frequently and covering your cough. Find helpful info here>
• Keeping safe distances and honoring personal space
• Avoiding hand to hand personal contact and touching your face

If you are in one of the groups that has been identified as being at higher risk—people over 60 years old or with certain underlying health conditions such as heart disease, lung disease, diabetes, kidney disease and weakened immune systems please stay at home as much as possible to reduce the possibility of being exposed to the virus.

We will continue to look to the Idaho Central District Health Department and federal Centers for Disease Control for additional guidance; provide regular updates as we get them; and announce additional measures as the situation warrants next steps.

Regards,