Lax Kw'alaams Lockdown extended; community continues to work on water supply issues

Members of the Lax Kw'alaams community will be facing another two weeks of lockdown measures, that after the Lax Kw'alaams Band Council announced an extension to ongoing health measures in response to an outbreak of COVID in Prince Rupert. 

The community has been on a lockdown since mid January, following the first reports of the spread of COVID-19 in Prince Rupert.

Towards the community advisory, the Emergency Measures Committee outlines the current specifics related to access to the community: 

Residents leaving the community will not be allowed re-entry unless: 

They are residents authorized to do so for EMERGENCY patient travel as authorized by the Health Centre Nurses. These patients must isolate for 14 days upon their return.

They are authorized to leave the community by the Assistant to the CAO for compassionate reasons (funerals, attending to those in critical care). 

Non-residents currently in the community do not have to leave; but when they do leave, they cannot re-enter the community. 

Contractors who enter the community will be assessed on an individual basis. Priority will be given to essential services or the various projects currently underway that influence community infrastructure and safety. These contracts will have no contact with community members. 

Retail grocers must not go back and forth. As before, please put your vehicle on the ferry, get it picked up at Aero Point by another individual, and get your vehicle returned unattended.

You can review the full background to the latest measures here.

In addition to the lockdown, the community is currently dealing with a water supply issue, with residents of Lax Kw'alaams urged to conserve water at this time.

No update has been provided as of today, so the messages to the community from the weekend would appear to still be valid for the situaiton.

Updates to that situation can be followed through the Lax Kw'alaams Facebook page.

The community also saw one of it's long time landmarks destroyed by fire over the weekend, as we noted on Saturday evening, Grace United Church was consumed by flames in a fire early Saturday morning, there were no injuries reported from the fire, the RCMP has indicated that it was suspicious in nature.

For more notes from Lax Kw'alaams see our Archive page here.