Covid-19 Daily News Digest – March 30, 2020
2 friends using self-isolation to map out COVID-19 travel restrictions across Canada
Two friends are using their time in self-isolation to map out different communities across Canada that are facing travel restrictions, due to COVID-19.
Different communities across the country are putting in highway checkpoints, cancelling flights and ferries, putting up blockades, and closing winter roads to limit non-essential travel from non-residents.
First Nations Call For Massive Resource Projects to Be Shut Down During Pandemic
Indigenous advocates like Greyeyes are calling for companies with sites across Canada to stop development and send resource extraction workers home until COVID-19 risk decreases, so that they aren’t unnecessarily exposed to workers, most of whom are transient.
The worry is that the workers still at development sites and “man camps,” the temporary units that house them, near Indigenous communities will increase the likelihood of the virus spreading into those communities. Indigenous women and men often work at the same sites as development workers, cooks, and cleaners, and transient workers often socialize in communities adjacent to their development sites.
Northern B.C. First Nations impose lockdown to prevent spread of COVID-19
“Our history as First Nations people, we have been hit hard with these types of pandemics,” said Slett. “Now we’re certainly trying to make sure we have those safeguards in place, working with our neighbouring communities and working collectively in our communities with that one objective of making sure we do all that we can and expand our community resources in a way that supports our community.”
Construction on Trans Mountain pipeline goes on, company says, as First Nations concerned over COVID-19 risks
Ian Anderson, the chief executive of publicly-owned Trans Mountain Corp., said the company is “continuously assessing this unprecedented situation” around COVID-19, as public-facing businesses across the country shut down in an effort to stem the spread of the virus. Some First Nations have called on Ottawa in recent days to shut down various major projects, including the construction of the Coastal GasLink natural gas pipeline in northern B.C. and the Site C hydro dam
Yukon First Nations help citizens make ends meet during COVID-19 pandemic
We have a number of hunters going out. We have a lot of bison, we have fish that has been already stockpiled and frozen. We got a moose last week that is frozen and processed and in storage,” he said.
Smith said the federal aid will assist the First Nation in managing the supports to its citizens, especially those most vulnerable in this time of crisis.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/yukon-first-nations-covid-19-pandemic-1.5515555
Six Nations, Akwesasne, Chippewas of Kettle and Stony Point confirm first COVID-19 cases
Three people have tested positive for COVID-19 in two different communities in southern Ontario.
Two people tested positive in Six Nations of the Grand River and one person was confirmed to have the virus in Chippewas of Kettle and Stony Point First Nation.
“We know we couldn’t stop it from being here. It’s here,” Mark Hill, elected chief of Six Nations, said on Sunday.
BREAKING: Lac La Ronge Indian Band restricts access over COVID-19
The bylaw will remain in force until either Council repeals it or until “the province of Saskatchewan declares that physical (social) distancing is no longer a necessary or recommended measure to deal with the COVID-19 virus.”
Several First Nations communities closed to non-residents
Almost half a dozen First Nations across Southwestern Ontario have decided to deny access to visitors to stop the spread of COVID-19, with one regional leader expecting more to follow in the coming days.
Joke about infecting Nunavut with COVID-19 ‘inappropriate’
An employee at a Nunavut gold mine is in hot water after joking about infecting the Arctic territory with the novel coronavirus.
She said the “patchwork” approach by different provinces wasn’t working and continued to put vulnerable communities like remote and under-resourced First Nations at unnecessary risk.
“Mining is not an essential service at this time,” she said in a telephone interview. “Unless you’re supplying to manufacture ventilators.”
‘There isn’t consistency:’ COVID-19 response varies for children in care
Phones have been ringing continuously at the office of the First Nations family advocate in Manitoba as parents, children and social workers look for answers about what will happen to some of society’s most vulnerable during the COVID-19 pandemic