Constance Lake First Nation declares 2nd state of emergency in COVID-19 outbreak

Constance Lake First Nation is declaring a second COVID-19 state of emergency after 11 cases have appeared in the small community in less than a week.

"For a community that has not had cases for the past 10 months, and with a number of cases in our community affecting children, we are alarmed, but we are urging calm," Chief Rick Allen said.

The outbreak began on Jan.16, as identified by the Porcupine Health, a news release said. The community west of Hearst has been in in lockdown since then.  Community-wide testing will take place after contact tracing has been completed on the 11 identified cases.

Some of the positive cases are among school-aged children, so the First Nation has closed the elementary schools and moved to home-based learning.

Constance Lake's first state of emergency was declared between March 17 and April 3 of last year.

"We are calling on federal and provincial governments to come together to provide funding and emergency management supports in order for CLFN to effectively respond to the outbreak," Chief Allen said.

"We are extremely frustrated that non-remote communities such as ours in Ontario, who have similar socio-economic conditions as remote communities and are not prioritized for vaccination, despite ours being more susceptible to outbreaks being closer to neighbouring municipalities. We need vaccinations immediately."

Allen says Mushkegowuk-James Bay MPP Guy Bourgouin has written to Premier Ford's office in an appeal for help.

They are asking for a COVID-19 isolation site for residents that have tested positive of COVID-19 and are unable to stay in their homes, the deployment of additional nurses and health care workers to help with quarantined members, access to COVID-19 rapid tests, personal protective equipment for health care workers and residents, and help from the local Ontario Provincial Police to aid with lockdown measures.