COVID-19

An open letter from the mayor of La Loche is looking for answers from Premier Scott Moe in the wake of his positive test for COVID-19 Thursday. 

Moe had visited the community, as well as Buffalo Narrows and Pinehouse, on Monday. The trip, which included Education Minister Dustin Duncan, and Minister of Seniors and Rural and Remote Health Everett Hindley, was for meetings, as well as to announce the location of a new school in La Loche.  

The City of Fort Saskatchewan has a contingency plan in place should things go awry in light of the current COVID-19 situation. 

The city is working to manage the impact on programs and services amid staff shortages due to the Omicron variant. 

For essential services such as emergency response, the city has a business continuity plan in place and assures the community's safety will not be compromised. 

The Ontario government plans to offer low hydro rates over the next three weeks as the province remains in lockdown measures.

Starting on January 18, electricity prices for tiered and time-of-use residential customers, small businesses and farms will be set at the current off-peak rate of 8.2 cents per kilowatt-hour for 24 hours a day, which is less than half of the cost of the current on-peak rate.

Sadly, Cochrane has recorded another death due to COVID-19 bringing the total to ten according to the AHS website.

Our town currently has 460 active cases while Rocky View County is reporting 570 active cases on Friday, January 14. 

Provincially, Alberta added another 6,163 new cases in the past 24 hours with a positivity rate of 38 per cent. 

Hospitalizations increased by 39 cases for a total of 822 and ICU admissions increase by two for a total of 81.

Five additional deaths have been reported bringing the total in the province to 3,380. 

Public health officials advise 14 new deaths in people with COVID-19 are being reported today:

There are 517 people in the hospital receiving treatment for COVID-19.

According to the provincial dashboard, Manitoba is seeing 18 new hospitalizations, bringing the total to 517. Out of those hospitalizations, 481 people have active cases of the virus.

Hospitalization by health region include:

• 329 in Winnipeg, 315 cases active
• 58 in Southern, 48 cases active
• 32 in Northern, 29 active
• 64 in Prairie Mountain, 57 cases active
• 34 in Interlake-Eastern, 32 cases active

It is more than apparent that the pandemic is creating a long list of backlog situations on many fronts.

Recently, radiologists have been sounding the alarm across the country that there is a growing backlog of medical imaging that would be part of that list.

Earlier this week, a small group of Kenora volunteers joined together with Tracy’s No Frills and created a fundraiser to send children’s supplies to Bearskin Lake First Nation.

Currently, the community is dealing with a COVID-19 outbreak that has infected the majority of the community forcing self-isolation.

Richard Goodfellow of Sure Can Volunteers said that a member actually came up with the idea to focus on the supplies for the children.

The Northwestern Health Unit has confirmed the discovery of 47 new COVID-19 cases in the region on Friday. 

20 were found in the Kenora Health Hub, 11 in the Sioux Lookout Health Hub, eight in the Dryden Health Hub, three in the Rainy River Health Hub, two each in the Atikokan and Red Lake Health Hubs, and on in the Fort Frances Health Hub. 

There are currently nine people hospitalized in the region from COVID-19, one up from Thursday's update. 

Trudy Schroeder wanted to be in politics when she grew up. Now, at  62-years-old, that teenage dream could come true.

Schroeder is known in Winnipeg for taking the executive director seat with the Winnipeg Folk Fest and most recently with the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra before leaving in the fall. Now, she is seeking the seat of the MLA of Fort Whyte.

"It's like a plot twist. 'What will Trudy do next?'" she says. "This was not necessarily on the radar for people but community life is something that I have always been quite passionate about."