Stephenville region finds itself back in Alert Level 4
Public Health still working to determine source of cluster that involves eleven cases
The numbers, at least right now, aren’t particularly large, but with the source of the infection related to a cluster of cases in the Stephenville/port au Port Peninsula area not yet identified, Newfoundland and Labrador Public Health officials are moving that region of the province to Alert Level 4 in its pandemic response program.
During a rare and unscheduled Sunday provincial COVID-19 update, Medical Officer of Health Dr. Rosann Seviour revealed there were11 confirmed cases and three presumptive cases associated with the cluster.
To expedite its investigation and to curtail potential spread, Public Health is moving the communities of Stephenville, Stephenville Crossing, Port au Port East, St. George’s and all of the Port au Port Peninsula to Alert Level 4. Those living along Routes 460, 461, 462, 463 and 490, the main roads west of the Trans-canada Highway leading into and connecting communities in the area, also fall under the Level 4 guidelines.
Seviour said the majority of the cases related to this cluster are in the Stephenvillekippens region, but the area subject to the change in alert levels was widened out of a need for caution.
Stephenville is the region’s main retail and service centre.
“We looked at it, we discussed, we hashed through how big the area should be. We chose the area was most represented (by identified cases),” she said, adding that geography and the length of this focused lockdown will be determined by what is discovered through test results.
“Tomorrow we will know more because of the information from the testing that was done today. We always have that little bit of lag.”
Travel into the area should be avoided unless essential, said Seviour, and anyone returning to elsewhere in the province from somewhere in the Bay St. George-port au Port region is being told to monitor for COVID-19 symptoms over the next two weeks. As well, in conjunction with the investigation into the cluster, thereare two notifications of potential COVID-19 exposure, one for those who visited the Dominion store in Stephenville on Wednesday, May 26 between 4:30 and 6:30 p.m. and the other for the Walmart in Stephenville the same day between 5 p.m. and 7 p.m.
Anyone who was in those stores during those hours is being told to arrange for COVID-19 testing, although the call for testing had already been made for a much larger segment of the area population; on Sunday, officials from Western Health have already suggested anyone in Stephenville and the Kippens area, especially those aged 12 to 30, should be tested whether or not they have any symptoms of the virus. This after the original cases associated with the cluster, including some in two Stephenville schools, were discovered last week.
Seviour said response to that testing has been good, but the effort is being expanded even further, with the Stephenville Dome being set up as a test centre today.
Those two schools — Stephenville Primary and Stephenville Middle School — had been closed. Both were scheduled to reopen today, but later Sunday, the Newfoundland and Labrador English School District announced the primary school will remain closed as testing continues.
Seviour said, as of Sunday, five of the cases in the cluster are linked to the two schools — four in one, all associated with the same cohort, and one in the other.
This is not the first time this spring an area of western Newfoundland has moved back to Alert Level 4.
For about a week earlier this month, the stretch from Codroy Valley down through Port aux Basques in the province’s southwest corner fell under heightened restrictions so as to prevent spread and to make source investigation and contact tracing easier. Like this latest cluster, some of the cases in that one were found in local schools.
In that cluster as well, it wasn’t the number of cases that triggered the temporary lockdown, but the fact the source of infection was not discovered in the early stages.
“We will make decisions based on what we are seeing… what the public health nurses are seeing,” said Seviour. “They are looking under every bush and every rock to find that source. We always breathe a little bit more comfortable when we can find that source, but we do not have that at the moment.”
Seviour said the change in levels not only is designed to prevent the spread of the virus — “when we limit the mobility of people, it limits the mobility of the virus” — but also allows Public Health officials to be more focused in their investigation into the source.
Seviour, who was flying solo at the briefing in place of Chief Medical Health Officer Dr. Janice Fitzgerald, offered a lot of information in terms of numbers and reminders of guidelines under Alert Level 4, but she did maintain a theme in the halfhour briefing, stressing three points throughout, especially for those in Stephenville and environs.
“I know how hard it is … (but it is important) to really stay within your household bubble and limit your contacts. I’d also like you to get your vaccination,” said Seviour, “and to get tested, even if you have mild symptoms or to respond to the advisory.
“I think sometimes, we have certain age groups that don’t respond as well to the advisories … they don’t see themselves at risk, but I would ask everyone in that area to go to (the province’s testing) website, book an appointment and get tested.”