The Eskasoni School Board has cancelled classes for all students and staff until April 19 as the First Nation grapples with rapidly rising COVID-19 numbers.
The school board posted statements on its social media accounts on Wednesday evening, saying the closures were effective immediately and are “in light of the recent rise in the number of cases of COVID-19.”
The school board runs the Eskasoni Elementary and Middle School, the Allison Bernard Memorial High School, the Eskasoni Immersion School and the Unama’ki Training & Education Centre.
‘Whole families’ getting sick
“We’ve been tracking the uptick in cases over the past week or so, and it’s gotten to the point where most of the students were out, and a lot of the staff were out as well,” said Elizabeth Cremo, the director of education for the Eskasoni School Board, in an interview.
“We’re seeing whole families now in quarantine or isolation getting COVID. It’s a significant number.”
Cremo said for now, the schools will not be moving to online learning.
“With many of our teaching staff out sick, we can’t ask them to prepare lesson plans,” she said.
“We just want to give them time to focus on getting better, and the same with our students. With so many actually ill with COVID, we don’t want to put that on them.”
The province no longer releases daily COVID-19 data, but Eskasoni’s health centre continues to track cases and the First Nation has begun sharing daily updates.
Chief tests positive
According to a post from Chief Leroy Denny shared to the Eskasoni First Nation Facebook page, 85 new cases of COVID-19 were reported in the First Nation on Wednesday and there are 263 active cases.
One of them is Denny himself, who was dealing with symptoms as he spoke with Global News on Thursday.
“It’s awful. Whoever said COVID is mild is a liar,” he said with a laugh. “I’ll be fine, I’m vaccinated, I’m a healthy person … but still, it’s kicking my butt right now.”
He said many community members attended the Wallace Bernard Memorial Native Youth Hockey Tournament last weekend, and he believes some of them might have picked up the virus there.
Since December 2021 — when the Omicron wave began — the band has reported a total of 944 cases, 681 of which have recovered.
Denny said the First Nation continues to track COVID-19 cases, even as daily reporting was abandoned by the province after it lifted most COVID-19 restrictions earlier in the month.
“It’s important that we stay on top of it, because after the restrictions lifted, we still had cases,” he said. “We were concerned because elders were getting sick … we just felt like we need this information in order for us to make decisions.”
Denny said the outbreak is also affecting staff at the band office and at the Eskasoni Health Centre. The health centre is “starting to struggle,” and staff are getting sick, but they’re still operating with minimal staff, he said.
The chief is urging the province to reconsider dropping the mask mandate, at least as long as cases continue to climb across the province.
The Eskasoni First Nation is the largest Mi’kmaq community in the world and one of five First Nations located in Unama’ki (Cape Breton.) According to its website, the community has a population of more than 4,000.
Denny said the “tight-knit” community is helping each other through the outbreak.
“Our community members, they’re very supportive amongst each other. For those who already had COVID, they’re helping those who have COVID,” he said, adding that people should continue to follow public health guidelines, even though they’re now optional.
“We encourage everybody to stay put, we strongly encourage everybody to wear a mask.”
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