COVID-19

On the recommendation of the City's Municipal Emergency Control Group, the City of Kenora is declaring a local state of Emergency as the result of the COVID-19 outbreak in Kenora.

Below is the release from the City of Kenora.

Today, on the recommendation of the City’s Municipal Emergency Control Group, the City of Kenora is declaring a local state of emergency in accordance with the Emergency Management and Civil Protection Act, 1990 as a result of the COVID-19 (Coronavirus) outbreak in Kenora.

The Kenora area has seen a major spike in COVID-19 cases in recent weeks. As of Tuesday, the Kenora Health Hub is reporting 53 active cases, which is a definite increase from five days ago when the area only had 20 cases.

Dr. Kit Young Hoon, Medical Officer of Health for the Northwestern Health Unit said in a media briefing Tuesday the spike in cases isn’t due to a single event.

“I think it’s just an increase in social gatherings and because people are indoors more because of the weather,” said Young Hoon.

The Northwestern Health Unit is reporting that 12 new COVID-19 cases have been found in the region. 

Three were found in the Dryden Health Hub, two each in the Kenora, Emo, and Sioux Lookout Health Hubs, and one each in the Fort Frances, Red Lake, and Rainy River Health Hubs. 

Follow up with the persons involved and their contacts has started according to protocol. Anyone who is identified as a contact for these cases will be contacted directly.

The addition of the newly found cases puts the active case count up to 102. 

Fort Frances – 15

Newer, tighter COVID-19 restrictions take effect in Manitoba today that cut the size of permissible gatherings.

However, chief provincial public health officer Dr. Brent Roussin has said it was not realistic to ask Manitobans to go without a holiday season for a second year.

He says the new restrictions will allow people to gather in a safer way.

Among the new restrictions, private indoor gatherings with vaccinated people are limited to household members plus 10 other people.

In less than 3 weeks Kenora will be hosting the Northern Ontario Men’s and Women’s Provincial Curling Championships from January 4-9, 2022.

Four women’s teams and eight men’s teams from all across Northwestern Ontario will be embarking on the Kenora Rec Centre to try and earn a berth in the Tim Hortons Brier, or the Scotties Tournament of Hearts.

Tracy Stasiuk is a member of the Collaboration Association and spoke on the excitement leading up to the event.

The COVID-19 numbers for Monday, December 20 saw a significant increase due in large part to the Omicron variant. 

With growing concern over the Omicron variant, Alberta Health Services is taking extra precautions at acute and continuing care sites.

Starting tomorrow, December 20, there will be limited access to care sites for designated support persons and visitors who are close contacts of confirmed or likely cases of COVID-19.

That means that support persons or visitors who are a close contact or have a case of COVID-19 in their home will not be able to access Continuing Care or AHS acute care sites for 14 days from the date of last exposure.

Winnipeg is reporting 129 new cases of COVID-19 on Monday. 

Another six Manitobans have died with COVID-19. Today's death toll includes:

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

On Sunday, new safety measures came into effect to try and mitigate the ongoing COVID-19 case surge in Ontario along with protecting Ontarians against the Omicron variant.

The new measures saw a 50 per cent limit on indoor public settings such restaurants, gyms, bars, and grocery stores to name a few.

In addition to the capacity decrease, the province reduced informal social gathering limits to 10 people indoors and 25 people outdoors.