Fort William First Nation continue diligent efforts to ensure community safety during pandemic

By Rick Garrick

FORT WILLIAM FIRST NATION — Dilico Anishinabek Family Care has tested about 80 Fort William citizens for coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), including about 15 during a Dec. 4 drive-thru COVID-19 test, after two citizens were confirmed as positive since late November.

“In the past week, we’ve probably done 80 tests [with], so far, no positives,” says James Anderson, manager of the family health team at Dilico, on Dec. 4. “We did about 15 today, so about 65 have come back [negative].”

Anderson says they did tests on all of the people who were close contacts to the two confirmed cases, a father and daughter who lived in the same residence.

“So the risk from that case seems to be managed,” Anderson says. “People are taking more precautions than we ever have before in modern history. You can still get it but by wearing proper masks, hand sanitizing, keeping six feet apart, you’re really reducing your chances of getting [COVID-19].”

Anderson says Dilico had been doing COVID-19 tests five-days-a-week for Fort William.

“That’s why we were able to catch this case as quickly as we did and the patient was able to self-isolate,” Anderson says. “And we were able to get ahead of [it] before there was a potential threat.”

Fort William Chief Peter Collins says the negative COVID-19 test results are a “good sign.”

“I talked to the ones that are dealing with the COVID-19 and so far their health has been fairly OK,” Chief Collins says. “Our team worked really hard on the contact tracing and made sure everybody that was … in close connectivity to it has been tested and tested negative.”

Chief Collins says he talked with the father “a couple of days ago and he said he was still feeling fine right now.”

“Our team has worked hard to make sure that they put measures in place to make sure everybody stays socially distanced and away from the ones that are infected,” Chief Collins says. “We worked hard to make sure there were no other spinoffs from it.”

Chief Collins says the gas stations and other businesses were still open but the roads leading to the residential areas had security checkpoints in place to monitor people coming into the community.

“We’re trying to do everything humanly possible to not shut down our businesses,” he says. “Anymore [COVID-19] cases in Fort William, in particular, if they come from the store areas, the stores will probably be a good chance of being shut down too.”

Anderson says Dilico is currently looking into the new rapid COVID-19 testing equipment.

“But we want to ensure that it is a very high-quality test because you don’t want false negatives,” Anderson says. “So we’re doing our research right now. I’ve been hearing good things about them but we just want to make sure everything is done before we get one.”

Anderson says Dilico has received varied responses from the COVID-19 tests they have done across the communities they serve, which includes eight Northern Superior Region communities.

“When we first decided we were going to get involved in testing, we knew it was really important to protect our community members and to have the tests ready in case there is a community breakout,” Anderson says. “Probably the biggest reaction we felt was curiosity — individuals were curious because nobody knew if they had COVID-19 or not, they did not know what the asymptomatic rate is, so I think there was some curiosity testing at first but I think that has slowed down.”