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A house party on Six Nations Saturday night attracted at least 25 cars and the ire of the elected band council.

The party at a residence on the reserve continued into the early hours of Sunday morning, according to a media release issued by council. Six Nations Police is investigating.

Band councillor Nathan Wright expressed frustration at the partygoers, whose actions he said undermined the efforts of Six Nations’ COVID-19 emergency control group to contain the disease. “Just the blatant neglect and disregard for their procedures and their work was a disappointment and discouraging,” Wright said.

The house party was one of what the band council statement described as “a number of large gatherings” on the territory Saturday night.

“(We) unequivocally condemn these actions,” council said. “Any large gathering further endangers the lives of our residents and community and creates unnecessary risk for our frontline workers.”

In response, Six Nations will step up security at access points to the territory, which are already limited to residents and essential employees. Wright said the specifics of the enhanced security measures are still being ironed out.

The decision to further reduce access was taken after what council described as “an outpouring of calls from concerned community members about Saturday’s incident.” Wright didn’t know if anyone at the house party came from outside the territory or whether police issued any tickets to attendees.

Nine Six Nations residents have contracted COVID-19, with one reported death. Seven residents have recovered.

“I think the community in total is doing a fabulous job, regardless of the few incidents over the weekend,” Wright said.

However, band council cautioned that those figures “are not an accurate reflection of Six Nations COVID-19 cases” since only approximately 200 residents have so far been tested, and Six Nations members living off-reserve aren’t included in that data.

“We are still in the first phase of this pandemic, and the numbers of confirmed cases are expected to increase across the province of Ontario,” council said. “We cannot become complacent simply because our numbers are lower than in surrounding communities.”

Wright said council’s message to residents continues to be to stay home, practice physical distancing, and follow the directives of Ohsweken Public Health.

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