Young women here in Nain will be celebrating their day on Sunday, March 6th, 2022.

Joan Dicker is the manager of the Illusuak Centre and have been holding the meetings for the traditional day.

The day will be celebrated at the Centre on that day.

Here are the following Church Services:

For the girls will be at 10am
The love feast will be at 3pm;
And the closing service will be at 5pm and will be open to the public.

There will be meetings today, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday starting at 3:15pm at the Centre if there are any young women interested in having their day.

The Nunatsiavut Government is advising that there are no reported cases of COVID-19 in any Labrador Inuit communities since the last update on February 24; all of the reported cases in the community of Nain have since recovered.

Public health officials continue to stress that it is likely the virus that causes COVID-19 will continue to present itself in all Labrador Inuit communities, and that activity may or may not be documented or reported. Residents have to assume the virus is present and to continue to follow all public health protocols.

The Nunatsiavut Government will continue to provide updates on COVID-19 activity, but will not be reporting case numbers as they may not be accurate or could identify infected individuals, especially if activity is low in any given Labrador Inuit community.

Individuals with symptoms, with no known exposure to the virus, should contact 811 or complete the online assessment tool at COVID Assessment and Referral to determine if testing is required.

Also, there are 25 (minus 13 since last update) confirmed active cases of COVID-19 in Voisey’s Bay.

There are 13 (minus 50 since last update) close contacts in isolation.

All positive cases and close contacts are in isolation.

Please note that these numbers for site employees are accurate and are submitted to provincial public health.

The next update will be end of day on Thursday, March 3.

First Light is a registered non-profit organization that serves the urban Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities.

Stacie Howse is the Executive Director for First light in St.Johns.

With the restrictions lifting they can return to some in-person programs.

She says that some of the programs are still being held through zoom.

The afterschool program is now open for youth ages 5 to 12 years of age and the location is at 40 Quidividi Rd.

Click here to hear more from Howse.

Newfoundland and Labrador has 327 new confirmed cases of COVID-19 today, February 28. On Sunday, February 27, there were 256 new cases and, on Saturday, February 26, there were 296 new cases.

Today (Monday, February 28), there are 19 people in hospital because of COVID-19, 13 in non-critical care and six in critical care. There have been 219 new recoveries since yesterday – 180 in the Eastern Health region, 10 in the Central Health region, 27 in the Western Health region and two in the Labrador-Grenfell region, and 21,705 people have recovered.

The breakdown of the 327 cases for today is as follows:

Eastern Health region – 257
Central Health region – 17
Western Health region – 25
Labrador-Grenfell Health region – 28

There are currently 2,235 active cases of COVID-19 in the province. The regional breakdown of the active cases is as follows:

Eastern Health – 1,550
Central Health – 303
Labrador-Grenfell Health – 95
Western Health – 287

A total of 3,522 tests were completed since Friday. To date, 512,636 tests have been administered.

The Nain Moravian Church held the new graveyard blessing yesterday, Sunday, February 27, 2022 at 2 pm.

Ten members of the Moravian Church attended the event.

There were prayers read by the Lay minister, where he blessed the four corners of the new graveyard.

The event took about twenty minutes, and closed with a hymn called “Sivulilaurit Jesuse Igvit.”

Newfoundland and Labrador has taken another step towards normalcy in a post-COVID world with a further easing of restrictions.

As of today, capacity limits in almost all settings are set at 75 per cent.

There are some exceptions; religious ceremonies where the VaxPass isn’t used are limited to 50 per cent capacity.

As well, gatherings in a person’s home and wakes held outside of a funeral home or place of worship are limited to 25 people.

At restaurants, self-serve buffets are still prohibited.

Dance floors are now permitted, but masks must be worn while dancing.

As well, as of today the province has dropped all border restrictions. Rapid tests will no longer be given out at points of entry and the COVID screening officers have been removed.

Travellers must still abide by federal travel restrictions, and follow provincial public health guidance.

As long as epidemiology remains stable the next, and final phase of the lifting of restrictions will happen in two weeks on March 14.

The construction of the new units and duplexes in Nain and Hopedale are near completed.

Tom Lyall is the General Manager of Nunatsiavut Construction.

He says there’s few odds and ends left to do before the units passed onto Torngat Regional Housing Association and to NG’s Nunatsiavut Construction.

Lyall could not say when a meeting will be held, but says maybe only after the end of March.

Click here when Lyall gives more details on the construction.

The Community Freezers along the North Coast are currently running low on wild foods and other food items.

One of our OK Radio staff contacted the community freezers along the coast.

The Nain community freezer currently has no wild or frozen foods available to serve to public at the moment.

In Hopedale, they have moose meat, basics such as sugar, flour, salt, noodle, soups, butter, porpoise fins, and macaroni.

In Postville, they have cod fish, in Makkovik, they only have arctic char, and moose meat in Rigolet.

The Rigolet Department of Health and Social Development is holding a Knitting and Giving program for others.

All supplies are provided for you and you can drop by on Thursdays from 1 to 4pm

Your knitted or crocheted items such as socks, mittens, hats, lap shawls, or other related accessories will help provide comfort and warmth to those in shelters, hospitals or nursing homes.

Please call the office at 947-3328 on Thursday mornings to let them know if you are attending.

Participants must self-assess for any flu-like symptoms prior to attending, and if you have any flu-like symptoms, please stay home.

The province’s Chief Medical Officer of Health cautions there are likely more waves of COVID yet to come.

But whether they’ll match Omicron for spread, or Delta for severity, remains to be seen.

Some experts believe the Omicron variant marks the beginning of the end of the pandemic

Dr. Janice Fitzgerald says while that may be, we can still expect more waves, just maybe not as severe.

She says there will likely be waves of COVID “for the next little while,” but adds they may not be as transmissible as Omicron or as severe as previous variants.