Ford must provide more resources to Thunder Bay to deal with COVID surge: MPP Monteith-Farrell

QUEEN’S PARK - The Ford government needs to provide Thunder Bay with the resources it needs to deal with a surge of COVID-19 cases to avoid another lockdown, said NDP MPP Judith Monteith-Farrell (Thunder Bay-Atikokan), after Thunder Bay's medical officer of health signaled Thunder Bay may need to return to lockdown.

“Doug Ford did not provide Thunder Bay with the resources it needed for a safe re-opening. Now we are facing a surge of COVID-19 cases and residents are rightly worried as community spread grows, their hospital fills up, and cases in schools increase.

With the surge of COVID cases among Thunder Bay’s homeless population, Doug Ford needs to support Thunder Bay's public health team and the work they are doing to ramp up testing, tracing and provide spaces to isolate to keep shelter residents and staff safe. The government must also speed up its vaccine rollout to ensure shelter residents and staff are prioritized and vaccinated quickly.

People need more help to get through the pandemic, and more hope that we can end this. We must do everything we can to avoid another lockdown, more spread, more closed businesses, and more tragedy.

The NDP is proposing positive solutions — the action and investment we need to put the end of this within reach, and to help people get there.”