Carry The Kettle First Nation locked down 14 days after COVID-19 outbreak

Carry The Kettle First Nation is under a 14-day lockdown following an outbreak of eight COVID-19 cases over the weekend.

Chief Brady O’Watch said residents have been ordered to stay home, with a designated person from each household to pick up essential supplies like groceries or medication.

Checkpoints have also been set up at the two main entrances to the community. Only members and those with essential purposes are permitted in.

Members are allowed to leave from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. for essential reasons.

So far, people have responded well because they have experienced this before.

“Our people understand the severity of the COVID-19. So I’m very grateful that my membership was very, very accepting of the lockdown,” O’Watch said.

“We’re all here to fight the virus and we’re all here to keep each other safe. The lockdown that we did, the purpose of it was to keep our children safe, keep our elderly safe, to keep this virus from just having a further outbreak. We had to stop COVID-19 in its tracks.”

However, O’Watch said there has been a silver lining to all the time spent inside. Parents, normally kept busy with work, are at home, spending quality time with their children and families.

“Us being at home, being more involved with our children, being more involved with our homes (and) the garden, those … made us really appreciate that kind of thing,” he said.

“It made us really stop and say, ‘You know, family is important.’ ”

Carry The Kettle First Nation is about 100 kilometres east of Regina.