First Vaccines Still Available in Kahnawake

Following Tuesday’s confirmation of an employees at the Kateri Memorial Hospital Centre (KMHC) testing positive, all seven in-patient residents on the second floor who were contacts of that positive case have tested negative for COVID-19. “We’re happy.  We were hoping they would progress this way,” KMHC Executive Director Lisa Westaway said as she joined us on the Morning D. “We have seven residents who are in isolation. they were identified as contacts. their COVID tests came back as negative. They remain in isolation for 14 days and they’ll be retested on day 12. For that one day while we continued our investigation we had stopped visits on the second floor . However they will resume today. however we had never stopped natural caregivers.”

Yesterday (Wednesday) marked one year since a State of Emergency was declared in Kahnawake. “We weren’t in a position or felt comfortable to say let’s evolve out of a state of emergency and move into recovery because we’re not at that point yet,” Commissioner of Public Safety Lloyd Phillips said on the Morning D. “There’s still too many unknowns. We were certainly hoping by this time we would be moving into recovery but again there’s so many unknowns with the variants, even though we’re still doing very well as a community.”

74% of those over the age of 16 in Kahnawake have received at least a first dose of a vaccine. While the temporary vaccination center at the Bingo Hall of the 138 remains closed until June, community members can still choose to get their first vaccine.

“Because everybody is subject to  the Quebec rules regarding vaccination right now, first doses only are available at the Old Malone Pharmacy and soon at the KMHC Pharmacy as well,” Westaway said. “Or if you change your mind and would like a first dose and you don’t want to go to the pharmacy then you can contact public health and KMHC will arrange to vaccinate you.”