Lela Evans says testing of Makkovik residents for COVID-19 has been running smoothly, despite concerns about a presumed positive case of the UK variant in the coastal Labrador Inuit community.
About three-quarters of the town’s roughly 350 adults only recently received both doses of the Moderna vaccine, so it remains to be seen how effective it is against the virus.
Evans says while they were fortunate to have already received the vaccine, the reasons for that are telling.
She says Indigenous communities like Makkovik didn’t get the vaccine early because they are special or considered more important. Rather, she says it’s a direct result of their increased risk and vulnerabilities due to decades of neglect by governments.
The Makkovik case is related to travel from the St. John’s area where there’s been an outbreak involving the more contagious B117 variant of the virus.