First Nations leaders plead with Manitobans to stay home

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This article was published 23/04/2021 (1807 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

OTTAWA — First Nations leaders are urging people to stop travelling within Manitoba, after the number of highly contagious variant cases on reserves doubled in three days.

“There’s more travelling happening right now, and we really need to see that slow down to reduce our caseload,” said Dr. Marcia Anderson, a medical officer with the First Nations pandemic response team.

She noted that on Tuesday, 14 cases involving variants of concern were reported on reserves; 26 were reported on Friday.

Similarly, off-reserve First Nations reported 45 variant cases Tuesday and then 91 new cases among First Nations off-reserve on Friday.

“That’s a very quick doubling time. We’re really concerned,” said Anderson, especially because First Nations people have more severe outcomes from COVID-19 than members of the general population.

On Friday, the province reported that someone infected with a more infectious variant had travelled from a church on the Sioux Valley reserve near Brandon, to the community hall at Skownan, 250 kilometres north.

First Nations COVID-19 cases had been clustered in the north, but have popped up in the Prairie Mountain and Interlake-Eastern health regions.

“When we see COVID spreading like this, we know it’s because people are travelling, either for shopping or for visiting,” Anderson said.

First Nations response teams are running thin, said Melanie MacKinnon, a nurse who is co-leading the First Nations pandemic response.

There are currently four teams, one of which is trying to recover from back-to-back work to conduct tests and containment work on multiple reserves.

“It would be really challenging for us to stand up a fourth team, given our capacity at this time, and it would be nearly impossible to stand up a fifth team,” said MacKinnon.

“We need to do everything we can in our collective, community power, to try to stop and slow the spread of COVID-19, and certainly the variants of concern,” she said.

MacKinnon is co-leading the effort to fully vaccinate adults who live on Manitoba’s 63 First Nations, plus 21 adjacent communities, with logistical help from the military.

About 38,000 Moderna doses were shipped to communities from March 20 to April 20. All but two of the 63 reserves have got their first shots, with the last pair having asked to delay the arrival of doses until next week.

MacKinnon said 28,000 doses have been administered and 3,000 have been scheduled.

There is uncertainty about Moderna shipments in May, but MacKinnon said she’s confident the goal of getting 50,000 people both doses by Canada Day will be met.

“At this point, we do not anticipate a significant supply issue,” she said.

Federal ministers mused Friday that Ottawa could shuffle allocations among provinces if the Moderna supply suddenly dried up.

“We’ve had a number of discussions internally, and with our trilateral (federal-provincial-Indigenous) tables, to ensure that if and when there is that challenge, we’ll be able to supplement and continue that prioritization,” Indigenous Services Minister Marc Miller said.

dylan.robertson@freepress.mb.ca