Twenty-three new Covid-19 cases in a day in Yellowknife

Yellowknife reported 23 new Covid-19 cases on Thursday as a month-long outbreak showed little sign of slowing ahead of stricter measures kicking in at the weekend.

From 11:59pm on Friday, the NWT’s capital will tell non-essential businesses to admit no more than 10 people at once. Schools, already closed since September 14, will remain so until at least October 4.

Thursday’s Covid-19 statistics update from the NWT government saw Yellowknife move from 311 to 334 recorded cases since the current outbreak began. Of those, 160 are active – an increase of 17 on Wednesday, suggesting six people in the city have recovered.

Three more people were admitted to hospital, including one more person admitted to intensive care.

The NWT government no longer reports recoveries or deaths by community. Following a two-day period earlier this week in which the GNWT combined recoveries and deaths in a column marked “resolved,” the territory entirely did away with the column on Thursday, instead reporting only active cases and total case numbers for each community.

“The total number of deaths territory-wide will continue to be reported,” the territorial government said. There were no new deaths to report on Thursday.

Behchokǫ̀ reported six new cases and one apparent recovery as its active case count increased by five to 59.

Whatì reported one new case and two apparent recoveries as its active case count dropped to 21.

One person appeared to recover in Hay River, bringing the number of active cases down to eight, and the lone active case in Fort Liard ended.

In total, the NWT reported 30 new cases and the number of active cases across the territory grew by 19 to 255.