Kahnawake community getting hit harder by COVID’s fourth wave in Quebec

MONTREAL (CityNews) – The Kahnawake community, just west of Montreal, is in the province’s ‘red alert’ COVID level due to a spike in cases in the community.

Between May and July, it didn’t have any active cases of the virus.

Now as the fourth wave hits the province, a total of 74 cases has hit the community, which is already about half the amount of cases they saw in the first three waves.

“We moved from that state of recovery in the green zone into red as of [Wednesday] afternoon because of the increase in numbers again,” said Chief Mike Delisle, Mohawk Council of Kahnawake.

“We have 33 active cases right now. Which we never had this much at one particular time,” said Lisa Westaway, executive director at Kateri Memorial Hospital Center. “So, that is very high. Our inability to contact trace within 24-48 hours, the number of contacts in isolation, expected rapid increase, think we’re going to see in the next two weeks, as well as the numbers increasing in areas surrounding. All these variables put together, put us in the red.”

The highly transmissible Delta variant is dominating the case count in Kahnawake.

“It’s alarming because the percentage in Quebec is somewhere under 30 per cent still. We’re almost at 100 per cent, at least of those that we know and also the number of cases isn’t so alarming because of course with relaxed restrictions we expected an increase in cases. However, the speed in which they multiplied was a little unexpected for us.”

September 1 marked the start of the vaccination passport in Quebec – including in Kahnawake – for anyone accessing the territory’s non-essential businesses either with paper proof or Quebec’s free VaxiCode app.

“We understand there would be a greater risk to our community. Our workers, outside workers who work within Kahnawake, as well as the patron. If in fact, we didn’t do it because we know our businesses attract outside visitors, whether it be in gaming, whether it be in restaurants and it just made sense on all levels to ensure public safety and health,” explained Delisle.

“We want our kids to remain in school. Yes, we’d have some vaccination mandates happening in some of our establishments there are no extra restrictions, but we highlight areas of caution, so organized sports, we know that travel is causing some cases as well. So basically we’re not adding more restrictions but were educating about where to be more cautious,” added Westaway.

Seventy per cent of those 12 and up in Kahnawake have received two doses of the vaccine, but public health is still pushing for more.

“We’ve just about met our goal we had set prior to the Delta variant. Of course, as you know with the Delta variant needed to be higher. We are still vaccinating every week and we actually more people calling to receive their vaccines.”