ICU admissions rise as NWT moves to 241 active Covid-19 cases

Two more people with Covid-19 have required intensive care in the past day, the NWT government said on Tuesday, as the number of severe cases in the territory gradually increases.

There have been four admissions to intensive care in the territory since Friday last week, more than a third of the total – 11 – since the Covid-19 pandemic began 18 months ago.

Stanton Territorial Hospital, in Yellowknife, only has a handful of intensive care beds (six, up from the regular four, according to an update earlier this month). It’s not clear how many other patients who don’t have Covid-19 are also currently in need of intensive care.

The condition of those in intensive care was not given, nor their vaccination status, though the NWT government says around four in every five of the 27 people hospitalized in the pandemic to date were not fully vaccinated. Having reported its second death from Covid-19 of the pandemic on Monday, the territory recorded no new fatalities on Tuesday.

There remains no confirmed information regarding the second person to pass away from the disease in the NWT, including their age and community.

Meanwhile, the NWT government changed the way it records deaths among its statistics in an apparent effort to avoid identifying the location of the latest death. Previously shown separately, deaths and recoveries now appear as one figure in a column marked “resolved.” This means people getting better and people dying are considered to have had the same outcome when the territory reports figures from each community.

The number of active Covid-19 cases in the NWT rose by 10 to 241 on Tuesday. There are now 141 active cases in Yellowknife, an increase of nine in the past 24 hours (19 new cases and 10 “resolved”).

In Behchokǫ̀, the active caseload increased by four to 51 (seven new cases, three “resolved”). Whatì moved from 31 to 30 active cases after one person resolved themselves.

One new case was also reported at the Diavik diamond mine.

More: Get full data on the NWT’s Covid-19 dashboard

How public health restrictions will evolve in Yellowknife, Behchoko, and Whati over the coming days remains unclear.

Earlier on Tuesday, a spokesperson for the NWT government’s Covid-19 Secretariat told the CBC there was no update regarding when schools may reopen, nor when gathering restrictions and containment orders might lift.

The spokesperson told the broadcaster an outbreak in Yellowknife among people without homes and shelter support staff had “peaked” and was now at 31 active cases, lower than the previously publicized high of 70 a week ago.