Chemawawin Cree Nation reports 1st COVID-19 death as outbreak continues

A northern Manitoba First Nation has reported its first death linked to COVID-19 as the community deals with an outbreak that has forced hundreds of its residents to self-isolate.

Chemawawin Cree Nation Chief Clarence Easter said he found out on Sunday that a woman in the community who had tested positive for COVID-19 died on Friday.

As of Saturday, 101 people on the First Nation were listed as active cases of COVID-19, Easter said. Three of them were hospitalized.

Another 221 people across 88 households in the community are self-isolating after being named as close contacts of confirmed cases of the illness, Easter said.

In a news release on Sunday afternoon, the province said there's a trend of concerning case numbers on Chemawawin that public health officials are working with the community to address.

People on the First Nation, which is about 400 kilometres north of Winnipeg, have been living under lockdown measures for weeks. Those rules were introduced after transmission in late March caused a spike in COVID-19 cases, Easter said.

"We started to see that there's going to be a problem," he said on Sunday. "Cases were not letting up."

As of Saturday, a total of 217 cases of COVID-19 had been identified in the community of roughly 1,500, he said. Chemawawin now has an average of seven to 10 new COVID-19 infections every day.

Pandemic rule-breakers

There were about 36 cases reported during an outbreak in November, but most of the community's cases are recent.

And this time, things are different, Easter said.

"We closed down then, too. But this time, I don't know. A lot of people are not listening," he said.

"A lot of the young people are getting infected because they're visiting, they're gathering and they're just spreading it, transmitting to one another."

Easter said while most people in the community are following public health advice, he estimates about 10 households aren't listening to the rules.

"They just won't get a vaccine. They won't stop visiting, gathering, partying," he said.

Easter said about two dozen people called into the community to enforce pandemic restrictions arrived on the weekend and have started to help change behaviours.

He made a request to the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs for those ambassadors last week. 

There are also six checkpoints set up in and near the community to make sure rules around travel are followed, he said.

So far, about 500 vaccine doses have been administered in Chemawawin, Easter said, which covers about half the community's adult population.

Easter hopes they'll have another immunization clinic soon, but he wants to make sure people don't let their guards down and stop following public health advice.

"Our focus is to get our numbers down," he said.

"The virus is still a public health threat.… There should be no visiting, still, until this virus can be dealt with. And get your vaccine — that's our only way out of this."