High River's Mayor is frustrated with the Province and how they're portraying the sudden outbreak of COVID-19 cases in the zone.

Craig Snodgrass says during the Province's daily rundown of the numbers earlier this week, he heard something that set him off.

"Dr. Hinshaw went on national TV the other night and told everybody in this province and everybody in this country that the issue in High River is being monitored by the municipality. That is 100 per cent completely false. I don't know where she's getting the information. But it's false."

Snodgrass says until just this morning (Wednesday, April 15), no one from the Health Ministry would return his calls.

"The problem is we cannot monitor these individuals because we don't know who they are. Because the Province won't give you those lists, they will not tell you who they are. So are are we supposed to be at all monitoring this?"

Snodgrass says the only conversations going on are at lower levels.

"Yes the bureaucrats are talking to our staff, but the only thing that's being relayed is exactly what's being said in press releases. The message of what's going on in High River is not getting to the right people. And I don't know what the problem is, but I'm working on it. And I will bust down every door until I get some action on this."

In the meantime, the Mayor says the Town along with most of High River's doctors do have a plan to try and safeguard the public and the hospital from the spread of the virus.

Craig Snodgrass says they, along with the Doctors are working to create a primary care network hub in High River.

"The primary goal of this hub is to have somewhere for the individuals that are going through this, that are positive cases. Somewhere they can go and we can get some kind of monitoring of what's going on and be able to educate and be able to stress the importance of isolation and quarantining. Not just for the individual, but for their whole family."

Snodgrass says they need a few things in place first.

"90 per cent of this can be done by virtual means. They're set up to do it and they have the contacts. What we need is to know more about who these people are and the secondary piece is the testing."

Snodgrass says what they want to do is set up an external testing site outside the hospital.

"It is critical. The issue is that the Alberta Government and the Ministry of Health, will not let us currently, set up an external site that would be run by the doctors, that would be monitored by AHS, that would be run by the Primary Care Network. That's why I need to talk to the Ministry of Health, is to try to push to try to get some things changed so we can deal with this better."

Snodgrass says they can't do anything unless AHS provides them with more information on who's been infected.