STRAIT AREA - While this part of Nova Scotia has obeyed provincial social-distancing restrictions since the COVID-19 pandemic arrived in the province 14 months ago, the atmosphere has changed now that local sites are being listed as potential exposure locations and multiple cases of COVID-19 have been confirmed at the region's largest high school. 

The Strait Area Education and Recreation Centre (SAERC) in Port Hawkesbury was alerted by Nova Scotia Public Health on April 27 - less than 24 hours before the entire province, including its school system, went into lockdown mode - that a case of COVID-19 was confirmed among one of the school's students. A report issued on May 5 by Public Health authorities also confirmed that "multiple" additional cases had been confirmed at the same school, although a specific number was not released to the public.

The executive director of the Strait Regional Centre for Education (SRCE), Paul Landry, has confirmed that the school underwent a deep-cleaning process following each of the Public Health case confirmations. He added that the SRCE has worked diligently with the various community organizations located at the high school building, including the Strait Area Pool, Eastern Counties Regional Library, the SAERC Day Care operation, and the SRCE itself, which has its head offices at the Port Hawkesbury school site. 

In the meantime, with active cases on the rise in the Eastern Zone - which comprises Cape Breton Island as well as Antigonish and Guysborough Counties - and a rash of additional potential exposure sites around Port Hawkesbury, Richmond Warden Amanda Mombourquette and Cape Breton-Canso MP Mike Kelloway are each demanding that Richmond County start hosting more testing clinics for COVID-19.

To date, the county's only testing opportunities have come at the assessment centre located at the Strait-Richmond Hospital in Evanston, as well as a pair of pop-up COVID-19 testing sites that took place on three occasions at the St. Peter's Lions' Hall. The grand majority of additional testing opportunities for the Strait Area have been held exclusively at the Port Hawkesbury Civic Centre, including a Public Health clinic currently scheduled to run until this coming Friday.