Nine Covid-19 cases were reported in the Northwest Territories on Tuesday while the number of active cases among the territory’s residents fell slightly, from 119 a day earlier to 115.
The territorial government said 215 cases are now considered resolved. The outbreak that began in the Sahtu earlier this month has now generated a total of 333 cases (which includes two in non-residents). One person has passed away.
Yellowknife added six cases on Tuesday and has 43 cases currently active. Of those, one is an individual at the North Slave Correctional Complex. The territorial government did not specify whether the individual is a prisoner, staff member, or otherwise connected to the complex. Contact tracing is under way.
Fort Good Hope added three cases and has 23 active cases. Norman Wells, which recorded no new cases on Tuesday, has 26 active cases.
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There were no new cases on Tuesday in other NWT communities, which each have, at worst, no more than a handful of active cases. Only four cases remain active in Colville Lake, where 79 cases in total have been reported in August.
One more person has been hospitalized since Monday, the NWT government said. So far, of the 10 people hospitalized since the pandemic began, the territory says nine were unvaccinated.
Overall, 68 percent of Covid-19 cases in the NWT since the year began have been in unvaccinated people, with 25 percent in fully immunized people and seven percent in people who were only partially vaccinated.
No new exposure warnings were issued on Tuesday.
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Restrictions on visitors at Stanton Territorial Hospital have been extended until at least Thursday morning.
Emergency extended
The NWT, meanwhile, extended its public health emergency for another two weeks until at least September 14.
In what has become a boilerplate justification for each extension over the past 18 months, the territory said emergency powers remain “required to continue to decisively respond to shifts in the NWT’s own public health situation and maintain preventative measures.”
That phrase has been used to explain the past 24 extensions of the emergency. Previously, the territorial government set out in greater detail the operational need for each two-week extension. The emergency must, by law, be reviewed every two weeks and either renewed or terminated.
The Yukon ended its public health emergency last week. Both territories first declared states of emergency in March 2020.
“We have learned so much about how to manage Covid since then,” Yukon Premier Sandy Silver was quoted as saying.
The NWT’s latest vaccination data, which is updated weekly, shows there is now 76-percent full vaccination among adults. That figure is 75 percent among those aged 12 and up. Each is a one-percent gain on the previous week.
Individual community data shows Colville Lake, where approximately half of the population was this month diagnosed with Covid-19, remains the least-vaccinated NWT community.
The proportion of fully vaccinated Colville Lake adults has doubled this month to approximately two in every five. That’s still the lowest ratio in the territory. Every other community has fully vaccinated more than half of its adult residents.
The NWT’s data shows Kakisa remains the only community in the territory to have fully vaccinated every adult.
