Manitoba Hydro has temporarily cut the number of workers at the Keeyask Generating Station construction site in northern Manitoba as part of a measured strategy to contain COVID-19 cases identified through ongoing testing of the project’s entire workforce, the Crown corporation announced Saturday.

“We’ve taken this deliberate step to protect the health and safety of the workers on the project and the neighbouring communities,” said Jay Grewal, Manitoba Hydro’s President and CEO in a press release Saturday.

“With the increasing number of COVID cases we’re seeing in Manitoba and the escalation of levels in the #RestartMB Pandemic Response System announced Friday, we feel that this decision — informed by the latest guidance from public health officials — is absolutely the right course of action to take,” she said.

All 764 workers at site have been tested using a private lab contracted by Manitoba Hydro to provide an initial screening. Any screening test indicating a ‘not clear’ result is then verified by a second test through the Cadham Provincial Lab before it is confirmed as a positive case.

As of Saturday at 3 p.m., five individuals are confirmed as positive, Hydro said. An additional 12 received a not clear in the preliminary screening test, and 696 workers received a clear result. Contact tracing and isolation continues for all staff noted as not clear and their identified close contacts.

Chiefs of four First Nations – Fox Lake Cree Nation, Tataskweyak Cree Nation, War Lake First Nation and York Factory First Nation – sent a joint letter to Grewal on Saturday and posted on Facebook demanding that the Keeyask Project be listed as Red (critical) level and that “Manitoba Hydro and the province take aggressive action and measures to contain ad control the outbreak.”

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