THUNDER BAY - A veteran-led disaster relief organization is winding down its operation in another First Nation community following an outbreak of COVID-19.
Team Rubicon received a request for assistance from Lac Seul First Nation on May 8 after cases of COVID-19 in the community started to increase. There are still 14 active cases of COVID-19 in Lac Seul but 30 are now considered resolved and public health officials say the situation is under control.
“When we were called to come in and assist the community was feeling the pressure of a fairly significant outbreak, as well as a number of communities in the region,” said Dan Faughnan, deputy administrator for Team Rubicon and in charge for Lac Seul team.
The three-week operation involved assisting the community with organizing the aid distribution centre and supporting incident management requirements with community leaders.
Faughnan said community leaders did an excellent job in dealing with the surge of COVID-19 cases and isolating people who were a high-risk contact.
During the operation, forest fires in the region caused some challenges and the aid distribution centre had to be relocated in the event of possible evacuations.
“Between Team Rubicon and the Canadian rangers, we had the entire distribution centre moved in 12 hours,” Faughnan said.
Team Rubicon is a disaster relief organization consisting of retired military veterans and first responders and is often called upon to assist following natural disasters such as floods or forest fires.
Since the start of the pandemic, the team has received an increase in requests for assistance in remote locations, including four deployments to Northern Ontario communities since last April.
“What we found with COVID, we had to pivot a bit to do other tasks that were filled with other volunteers,” Faughnan said. “Communities in the north were getting ready for how to respond to community outbreaks. We started to look at their pandemic plans at the community level, what resources they require, and how we would respond.”
Faughnan added that the team has seen a lot of success with its operations in parts of northern and eastern Ontario, which has generated more interest in the services it can provide.
“Once we started getting our name out to communities we started getting a lot more calls,” he said. “We have been expanding at quite a pace. And we also use that to recruit new grey shirts because we can see that expansion continuing certainly going into 2021 and 2022 both in Ontario and across the country.”
Team Rubicon members will be departing Lac Seul First Nation on Sunday. Faughnan said the situation appears to be well under control and with vaccination efforts, he anticipates the community should be able to look forward to a safe summer.
“The community has a very active vaccination campaign,” he said. “I think in the next few weeks they will be in good shape going into the summer. All our members are vaccinated with at least their first shot.”
There are plans to assist other First Nation communities in the north but Faughnan said the details of those operations are still being worked out.
“Right now, there are discussions with a couple of communities to see what their support requirements are,” he said. “We have to determine what kind of staffing we need to do. We have to look at the logistics of getting our teams up there and that our teams stay safe as well.”
