To keep everyone safe for Halloween, the Blood Tribe Emergency Management Team has developed these trick or treating safety guidelines.
Trick or Treating
• Stay at home if you are feeling sick or self-isolating.
• Choose costumes that allow your child to wear a non-medical face mask. They can wear a mask underneath a Halloween mask as long as they can see and breathe comfortably. Make sure it’s comfortable so your child won’t need to adjust it.
• Go only with family or cohort members and keep a healthy distance from others.
• Stay in your community to limit the number of people you come into contact with.
• Carry hand sanitizer and use it after touching high touch-points like doorbells or railings.
• If you can, knock instead of pushing doorbells, or keep 2 metres from the door or porch and call “trick or treat”. Make sure the person calling is wearing a mask.
• Wait until you’re home and have washed your hands before handling candy.
• If you are leaving the Reserve to trick or treat in surrounding communities, please make sure you know their current COVID-19 situation. This way, we can ensure keeping the numbers low on the Reserve.
Handing out Candy
• Post signs to hang in your window or place on your door to let trick-or-treaters know if you’re handing out treats this year or not.
• Wear a mask and use tongs or a grabber.
• Keep a healthy distance from trick-or-treaters. If possible, hand out candy from the driveway, open garage, or lawn instead of your front door. If you can, stand outside your door to hand out treats. Then kids won’t need to touch the door or doorbell. If you’re unable to sit outside to hand out treats, clean and disinfect doorbells and knobs, handrails, and any other high touch surface often during the evening.
• Ask trick-or-treaters to knock instead of ringing the doorbell.
• Skip Halloween parties this year. Indoor gatherings, big or small, put people at higher risk of getting COVID-19.
• If you host or attend a small party, keep it within your social group (15 or less people).
• Celebrate with your favourite Halloween movie or other traditions that you can do within your household or social group.
• If you are indoors (school, apartment building, or mall) use a table or desk to keep a safe distance from trick-or-treaters (e.g. school classroom, apartment building, mall).
• Get creative! Build a candy slide down your front steps or railing or build a (safe) candy catapult! There are many fun ways to hand out treats while maintaining physical distance.
• Be more outside than inside. Keep your space well-ventilated with windows open.
• Avoid handling treats!
* Use prepackaged candy (no homemade treats).
* Hand treats out directly from the package they came in.
* Don’t leave self-serve bowls of bulk candy.
* Make candy bundles/bags and space them out on a table or blanket for trick-or-treaters to take.
