(La Loche Facebook)

By Nicole Reis

LA LOCHE COVID-19 UPDATE

La Loche COVID-19 situation ‘under control’ as contact tracing continues

Apr 21, 2020 | 5:58 PM

The province reported four new cases of COVID-19 today and two of those are in the North.

According to Northern medical health officer, Dr. Rim Zayed, the village of La Loche itself, remains at five positive cases.

“The situation for La Loche, the first case was linked to the curling outbreak in Alberta. We did contact tracing, and the cases were linked to a health care worker, then the long term care facility. Our contact tracing revealed other cases, the total cases are five cases from La Loche,” Dr. Zayed said during a media conference.

Zayed has been working closely in the community and said the situation is under control in terms of contact tracing positive diagnoses.

“We have some plans in the community and it is encouraging and really thrilling to see this kind of communication, discussion and translation of plans into the community. The situation is under control and there is a continuous communication in the community,” Dr. Zayed said.

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“Contact tracing is a vigorous process and when I say under control, it doesn’t mean that we will not have new cases but this means we can trace the link and know the link between cases and are tracing the source.”

Dr. Zayed determined the definition of an outbreak within long term care facilities stating if one resident or one staff member is diagnosed with COVID-19, that is enough to establish an outbreak. Enhanced restrictions for Saskatchewan long term care facilities came into effect on March 16. Contact tracing is still ongoing.

“For La Loche, the situation was that we had a case with a positive diagnosis and was followed by contact tracing. The contact tracing revealed a long term care patient who was diagnosed with a positive case. In that context, the definition of an outbreak for long term care, means one resident or one staff member is diagnosed with COVID-19. With that context, it was clear there was an outbreak in the long term care home.”

La Loche mayor Robert St. Pierre told meadowlakeNOW the province is the first to know about positive cases before community leaders are informed.

“I havent’t heard of any new cases as of now, but that could change in 10 minutes,” St. Pierre said. “Saskatchewan has the information first. The chief medical officer informing of additional cases, depends on where it is. The information gets disseminated because of contact tracing. The medical health officer here does their part in tracing, when they do the contact tracing, they’ll let leadership know which community it is coming from, we’re the last to know.”

A precautionary advisory remains in place by the SHA which discourages non-essential travel from northern Alberta to northern Saskatchewan communities including La Loche.

Additional measures at the community to prevent spreading of the virus include vehicle checkpoints and curfews between 10 p.m. and 7 a.m., and limiting non-essential travel to northern Alberta.

Those returning from northern Alberta are asked to self isolate for 14 days.

​If you are concerned you have COVID-19-like symptoms that seem to be getting worse, please take the self-assessment test here, speak with a health care provider or call HealthLine 811.

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nicole.reis@jpbg.ca

Twitter: @nicolereis7722