Vaccine Rollout Begins Today for Most Vulnerable in Kahnawake
Written by Paul Graif on 6 January 2021
The Moderna vaccine is coming to Kahnawake today for the most vulnerable. Lisa Westaway is the Executive Director of the Kateri Memorial Hospital Centre (KMHC).
“Our elders at KMHC in-patient and at the Elders Lodge will be vaccinated on Wednesday,” she said.” “This is really exciting news.”
Residents at the Independent Living Centre (ILC) will receive their vaccines next week.
Meanwhile Westaway says they are preparing to vaccinate over 6500 residents in the coming months. That vaccinations will be administered at the Super Bingo along Highway 138 when they are ready to get going in the coming weeks.
Frontline health workers will continue to receive the Pfizer vaccine in the Monteregie, as many have already received their first of two doses.
“Do health instruction of distance, hygiene and masking have to be followed once we are vaccinated?” Westaway says that question has often been posed to the Kahnawake COVID-19 Task Force. “Yes, we have to continue to follow distance, hygiene and masks because it’s going to take some time before our whole community is protected against COVID-19. Therefore, we have to maintain these health instructions for some time to come.”
Westaway says that Kahnawake will continue to follow the emergency measures in place in the community, rather than adhering only to Quebec’s new lockdown rules that will be announced this afternoon.
“We dot feel that we need to move towards the type of lockdown that Quebec is going to be putting in place. Why is that? The reason for that is because we have already been in that type of a lockdown.”
Several people from the community have traveled over the holidays according to the Task Force. The Federal rules indicate that they must quarantine for 14 days upon return. Several flights that returned to Montreal have had confirmed cases of COVID-19.
“We urge anyone who traveled to quarantine for 14 days upon return. It is extremely important,” Westaway said. “If you develop symptoms, you call the testing site immediately and you come and be tested. If you have no symptoms, we ask that you wait one week from the time that you returned and then that you get tested if you were on one of those flights with COVID-19.”
