Manitobans asked to skip weekends at northwestern Ontario camps

An MPP and provincial cabinet minister is asking people from outside of northwestern Ontario who have seasonal residences in the region to avoid visiting during the global COVID-19 pandemic.

Greg Rickford said that as the weather warms, people from provinces like Manitoba may be tempted to visit their camps in northwestern Ontario, such as on Lake of the Woods.

But, Rickford said, that would be a bad idea due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

"Unfortunately, the small towns and cities in these areas, and across northern Ontario, are simply not equipped to handle the additional potential capacity on hospitals, or the public health risk, associated with a critical mass of people moving to their secondary residences," Rickford said.

"But with the threat of ... the spreading of [COVID-19], and the consequences that are trending right now, that at least 10 to 15 per cent of them would be required at some point to go into an intensive care unit, it can convert quite quickly from asymptomatic to symptomatic, symptomatic to requiring a ventilator, our hospital isn't equipped to handle that."

"Neither is Fort Frances," he said. "Neither is Dryden."

Rickford also called on the federal government to step in and help coordinate standard rules governing inter-provincial travel across the country.

There have been four positive cases of of COVID-19 in the region; the most-recent is a case in Nipigon that was reported Monday afternoon.

The City of Thunder Bay has three confirmed cases of the virus.