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Good afternoon and welcome to COVID Communiqué 14. We’ve got quite a bit of new information for you this week.

First, we have made a number of small but useful changes to In This Together, Our Diocesan Plan for Reopening. That’s why you’ll see it numbered Version 1.1 and marked “Updated.” Two of the changes, to paragraph 28 and paragraph 38b concern information on cleaning and disinfecting churches. We updated these links after one of our readers pointed out earlier links required two clicks and even then only led to a menu of choices. (If you, too, find a problem in something we’ve sent you, please let us know—we do our best but there is just so much going on that we do occasionally slip up). 

The third set of changes to the plan affects collecting contact information. We’ve added a document from Ottawa Public Health, a COVID-19 Attendance Log: https://www.ottawapublichealth.ca/en/public-health-topics/resources/Documents/COVID-19_Places-of-Worship-Attendance-Log_EN.pdf. This is the recommended form for collecting contact information from people who come to services, as is required by Ottawa Public Health and other public health authorities, covered in paragraph 35 of the plan. Since Public Health’s document only asks for a phone number or an email address, we’ve dropped our requirement for mailing addresses. We have also updated paragraph 122 b, part of the disclaimer about contact tracing that parishes must display. We had said the information would be kept until two months after the COVID-19 emergency ended but, in keeping with Ottawa Public Health’s rules, you are now required to destroy each week’s contact list after 30 days.  However, it still remains imperative that you collect this information from everyone who attends every week. Even if you have the information stored elsewhere, or it’s a person who comes every week, you need to record it for contact tracing in case someone who was there is found to have the virus, potentially putting others at risk. (Family members need only give one phone number or email). 

We thank the Parish of the Valley and Bishop Michael Bird for letting us adapt their welcome back brochure.  We’ve modified it slightly to make it more generic; there are places for you to insert contact information for your own parish and your church logo. The Parish of the Valley will hand-deliver or mail the brochures, depending on how individual churches want to distribute it. 

Finally, there are new questions and answers for you to look at here. Please, if you have questions you can’t find the answer for in the plan or on the website, send them to us at C19helpdesk@ottawa.anglican.ca. This is also the address if you’d like to receive your own copy of COVID Communiqué or if there’s something we’ve overlooked or gotten wrong—just drop us a line! 

COVID Communiqué is produced by the senior staff of the diocese: 
Shane Parker, Bishop
Linda Hill, Executive Archdeacon
Sanjay Grover, Director of Financial Ministry
Peter John Hobbs, Director of Community Ministries
Jane Scanlon, Director of Stewardship Development
Carol Sinclair, Director of Human Resources