Five Active Cases of COVID-19 as Restrictions Set to Ease

There are now five active cases of COVID-19 in Kahnawake. Lisa Westaway, the Executive Director of the Kateri Memorial Hospital Centre (KMHC) appearing on Kahnawake 911 on Facebook Thursday afternoon. “One new case, actually just today (Thursday). So we have five active cases. The other four are left from the previous outbreaks or clusters that we had,” Westaway said.

Westaway spoke in detail about the Phase One reopening and reducing to an orange alert level in the community that goes into effect on Friday May 21st. Restaurants will require an inspection before opening up their dinning rooms. “Restaurants are also going to open at 25 percent capacity inside the restaurant and outside the restaurant,” she said. “It is for Kahnawakero:non only at this time. And it is only one household that can sit at a table together. So you can’t go, unfortunately at this time, two couples to the restaurant. It would be only whoever is living in your house at one particular table.”

The Task Force weighed the risks of a gradual phased in reopening mainly based on the vaccination rates. “We have preliminary data that is also demonstrating that the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines are effective against the most common variants found in Quebec right now,” Westaway said. “So, although there are four variants found in Quebec right now, variants of concern as they are called, the UK variant is the most predominant. It is the variant that we have seen here in the community. Preliminary dats is showing that the vaccine is effective against this variant.”