Coronavirus (COVID-19) Local News

Most local businesses are suffering these days, and many will close permanently as a result of the COVID-19 lockdown. These businesses are run by your friends and neighbours, and their loss would change Greater Victoria.

Service organizations that depend on donations of household items are asking the public to hold on just a little longer to all those items normally donated as part of spring cleaning or decluttering the house.

Hotel owners are worried about safety risks to their staff and potential damage to their properties if the B.C. government heeds a call by Victoria council to requisition hotel and motel rooms for people without homes during the COVID-19 outbreak.

Even the smallest charity fundraisers take several months to organize. CHEK-TV pulled one together in a matter of weeks — and a big, starry one at that. Rock for Relief: A Living Room Concert for Vancouver Island airs tonight at 8 on CHEK.

A move to have B.C. health care workers in seniors homes work at only a single facility will be mostly in place as early as next week, says B.C.’s provincial health officer.

Helps says delayed tax payments will have a significant impact on the municipality

There has been another death from COVID-19 on Vancouver Island, for a total of three deaths on the Island, according to the B.C. Centre of Disease Control’s website. Island Health confirmed the death in hospital of a patient in their 80s.

Saanich council appears to be getting ready to scrap its commitment to study municipal amalgamation.

The family of late Victoria businessman Wilson Lai has made a $1-million donation to the Victoria Hospitals Foundation for vital cleaning equipment for surgeries.

Children’s drawings, photographs and homemade cards for beloved grandparents are being delivered online to residents of Broadmead Care’s five long-term care homes, courtesy of the Rapid Relief Fund .