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One year after first COVID cases in the region, northern leaders look back on pandemic lessons

It’s been just over a year since the first two cases of COVID-19 in Thompson, though that fact wasn’t made public until months later. But while that may have been the official start of the city’s pandemic, it didn’t get real until the fall.
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It’s been just over a year since the first two cases of COVID-19 in Thompson, though that fact wasn’t made public until months later.

But while that may have been the official start of the city’s pandemic, it didn’t get real until the fall.

May, June and July saw no confirmed new cases of the virus anywhere in Northern Manitoba.

There was one in August and 14 in September, which saw multiple cases reported in the Northern Regional Health Authority (NRHA) on the same day for the first time, including seven family members testing positive in York Landing, in what might be considered the start of the north’s second wave of infections, or even the real beginning of the first.

The number of northern infections increased more than tenfold in October, to 198 total cases, then continued rising – to 800 in November, 1,133 in December and 1,833 in January before dropping to 968 in February and 1,047 in March.

Through the first seven days of April, there had been 233 positive tests for the virus in the north, a daily pace, so far, higher than November’s despite weeks and weeks of public health restrictions

Clearly, there’s still a long road ahead in the north and in Manitoba as a whole before it’s time for any victory laps, especially with chief provincial public health officer Dr. Brent Roussin having warned in an April 6 press conference that the third wave affecting Ontario and other parts of Canada will likely affect Manitoba as well, but political leaders from the region have learned many lessons from the first year of the pandemic.

Changes

The start of the lockdown era brought many changes to the way the City of Thompson is run, if not the actual business that gets done, says Mayor Colleen Smook. Initially, all city facilities were closed to the public, though the closure of City Hall lasted only a few months and it has remained open ever since.

“It made it very difficult for some of the people who didn’t use the internet or didn’t have access to actually come and pay bills or check on things,” she said, and staying open hasn’t caused any problems. “We weren’t overrun with people or anything. It was all very organized and people really respected the protocols in place.”

Like for so many people everywhere, learning to do things virtually became the order of the day.

“It really hasn’t changed the actual business of the city,” the mayor says. “It’s a bit more awkward with Zoom. Everything is on Zoom, even when you’re meeting with different entities.”

The biggest impact for the municipality was on the recreation department, with the arenas and the gym shut down for months, though it was handled without job losses.

“We, as a council in general, made the decision early on to move people from recreation to vacant spots in public works and City Hall that hadn’t been filled yet,” Smook says. “The employees who stepped up to the plate and did these changes, a lot of them weren’t used to the new jobs, new capacities they’ve had, so we definitely really appreciate that. Definitely a thank you to the public for being patient with us, too, while we were able to do this because it definitely affected our level of service in some ways. Not all that much but it was noticeable in some areas that we definitely had to pick up the pace.”

Reducing in-person contact also affected two of the biggest parts of Thompson MLA Danielle Adams’s job: meeting with constituents and sitting in the legislature.

“I’m doing office hours remotely so people can still connect,” she said. “I’ve done a lot more virtual town halls. It’s been a different way to connect with people and it’s just finding new and more innovative ways to connect.”

In any given week, some MLAs are physically in the legislature in Winnipeg, while others are participating remotely.

“I spent all of the previous session in the fall being remote,” Adams said. “That way MLAs are able to participate and we’re not having to do all of the travelling.”

For Churchill-Keewatinook Aski MP Niki Ashton, advocacy work has shifted from taking place in the House of Commons and at press conferences to also include the power of the pen. Since the pandemic began, her office has sent out nearly 50 letters on her behalf to federal ministers and departments on topics from the need for doctors and military assistance to income supports for fishers and other workers.

“It’s been important for me right from the get-go to be an advocate for our region,” Ashton says. “I’ve been in touch with folks literally around the clock. We’ve raised issue after issue directly with ministers. It’s been very important for me to be outspoken about what we need.”

Challenges

As well as a time of change, the COVID-19 pandemic has also been a time of challenges. Smook says it has been mind-numbing at times trying to keep up with new developments that occur almost hourly as well as to get the province to consider regional and municipal perspectives.

“We had to be ready for changes within the city, within the whole community,” she says. “You weren’t sure if kids were going to school or staying home. There were some issues earlier that the north wasn’t always in on the consultations before things happened but that’s definitely gotten much better over the last year. We do definitely have more of a say in what is happening to us. Sometimes it’s a little bit after the fact but we are making our voices heard from the whole north.”

Getting answers from the province hasn’t even been easy for Thompson’s MLA.

“The lack of engagement from this government has been really shocking,” she said. “I’ve asked repeatedly for meetings pertaining to the vaccine rollout, on different things pertaining to COVID, and they’re not willing to meet with us. A lot of the vaccine rollout issues in the north could be avoided if they would meet with the MLAs and other local officials to ensure that groups aren’t being overlooked and that it’s the best way to get people vaccinated.”

Smook says the economic pain imposed by restrictions on shopping and business hasn’t been equally distributed.

“Our small businesses were definitely affected,” the mayor says. “I’m thinking of the businesses like 25 to 50 years, like ET Blades, Lambert’s, places like that that had been in business and maybe talking about retirement. Over this year they’ve basically dipped into their retirement savings to keep their businesses afloat so I think it’s had a lot more dramatic impact on our small businesses than on our bigger businesses, that’s for sure. I really feel our smaller businesses could have been given a little bit more leeway with the province because it’s self-owned, they’re small, they are going to look after their employees, they’re going to worry, they’re going to make the people coming into their stores more accountable much easier than a Walmart that has a lot of people hanging out front.”

Infrastructure deficiencies have impacted many northern communities, Ashton says. In Thompson, when schools were moved to remote learning last spring, about 500 out of 3,000 students didn’t have access to the internet at home to connect with teachers and fellow students, but in other northern communities, the situation can be far worse.

“Before COVID hit, in my visits to communities I’d hear about access to quality affordable internet as one of the top 10 issues and now it is easily in the top five. I know in some communities they just flat out said, ‘We can’t do online learning. Our internet capacity’s just nowhere near there.’”

Equally pressing is the need for better health care, access to clean water and more housing, factors that directly contributed to the number of COVID-19 cases and deaths in several communities because public health orders regarding self-isolation couldn’t be followed effectively.

“We saw clearly that the rates of infection have been much higher in First Nations than in the general population and this is despite the extraordinary efforts that so many communities have made during this time and we know it’s because of … decades of federal neglect, the lack of investment and funding in key areas including health care, housing, broader infrastructure,” Ashton said.

The fact that multiple First Nations in Northern Manitoba had to request military assistance in dealing with COVID-19 outbreaks is evidence that the federal government was ill-prepared despite knowing about these longstanding issues and their potential to make the pandemic worse for First Nations. 

“It shouldn’t have had to get to that point,” Ashton says. “The federal government knew how vulnerable communities were in our region. They should have been working on being prepared even before this pandemic and certainly early on in the pandemic and we didn’t see that.”

Positives

Test reults haven’t been the only positive things to result from the pandemic.

“I think northerners have done a really good job of following the rules and listening,” says Adams. “We have shown how resilient and how amazing we are and I’m so proud to represent our region.”

Particularly in First Nations, Ashton says, leaders went all-out to try to prevent the virus from making it into their communities because they knew the impact it would have. When it did, they shifted their efforts to containing it and caring for those who were infected.

“I really want to acknowledge the immense strength of so many leaders, advocates, frontline workers in the health field and everywhere who’ve been making our communities work throughout this crisis,” she said. “I’ve come to know in how many ways so many people across our north have gone above and beyond to keep things moving, to keep people safe.”

For Smook, the pandemic has brought out some of the best in Thompsonites.

“The community spirit, I found it, in the last especially six to eight months, much more positive,” she said. “In general there was a much more positive attitude toward us. I just hope that we can keep that up.”

She’s also seen how partnerships with other organizations such as the YWCA Thompson and Manitoba Keewatinowi Okimakanak (MKO) to help house some of the city’s homeless people make difficult tasks easier. 

Having one main hotspot to react to in the form of COVID-19 has also helped the city to try to work more proactively in other areas.

“The slower pace has actually enabled us to take a deeper look inside at what the city really needs instead of always just putting out fires and trying to go on to the next,” Smook says. “It’s actually slowed it down enough so that we can take a deeper look at what we ourselves need to do.”

In some ways, Smook says, the pandemic has been good for the city. Building permits actually rose in 2020 over the previous year, possibly because, with people spending so much more time at home, many embarked on home renovations or began building decks and garages.

Lessons

If there’s one thing that the COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated, Adams says, it’s that the provincial health care system is underfunded and inefficient, with a structure that actually led to people importing the virus into their communities.

“A lot of the cases that initially went into the First Nations communities were from accessing medical treatment,” the MLA said. “[The government] needs to do broader investments with telehealth and making telehealth more available and ensuring that people don’t have to go to Winnipeg for just a consultation. Using telehealth in a broader sense would be better for northerners, it would be better for budgets as they continue to cut northern patient transport.”

She also says that it doesn’t appear the province’s decision to essentially reinvent the wheel when it comes to how COVID vaccines are delivered is the right approach.

“It’s the most convoluted, expensive plan on the planet. It still doesn’t make sense that they’re bringing people to the vaccine,”Adams says.”It needs to be the other way, where they’re bringing vaccine to people. Gillam has an airport and a hospital. Why can’t Gillam have vaccine at the hospital? Every one of the communities either has a health clinic or a nursing station. They just have to bring in the freezers and spend. The Northern Health Region does flu clinics every year and they get the north vaccinated. The Northern Health Region knows what they’re doing with this.”

Looking forward

Although the pandemic is still not over, the arrival of vaccines and the easing of public health orders should enable sone projects that have been put on hold or delayed to move forward, including the community safety and well-being strategy and the sobering centre.

“Where that should have likely been up and running or at least into the renovation stage by now, it’s all just going to start happening in the next few months or so,” says Smook.

The number one priority for the city right now is the budget, which has to be presented to the public, approved and then submitted to the proivnce by May 15.

“The government did give us some COVID dollars and we’re actually going to be able to use those to improve some things in the city,” says Smook, referring to $818,898.73 from Manitoba’s share of federal Safe Restart funding that the city is receiving. “Those dollars are definitely going to have an impact on our budget and a positive impact so that’s some good news that has come out of this for us.”

A return to normal may be what many people are longing for but Ashton says that falls short of what she thinks should happen.

“COVID will still be with us for quite some time, even past the vaccines,” she said.”This is a new reality and we need to see the federal government step up and make the investments necessary to keep people safe. We need to rebuild from this crisis in a way that ensures peoples’ well-being is at the centre, knowing that so many people have paid for these inadequacies and underfunding with their lives, literally. I believe the conversation within our region and within our country has changed. It’s clear people are demanding more and a different way of doing things from government. It’s because, as we’ve seen during COVID, it is a matter of life and death. We need to see the federal government invest in public health care. We need to see health care expanded in our north. We need to see investments made in First Nations, including a hospital in Cross Lake, a hospital in Island Lake. We need to make sure there’s enough doctors and nurses servicing the communities but it goes beyond that. We need to see investment in housing.”

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