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Everyone who has tested positive is self-isolating at home. Anyone who needs more intensive care, such as ongoing intravenous fluid, oxygen or life support, will need to be airlifted to southern hospitals in Winnipeg or Ottawa. Officials said Wednesday there are multiple options available if some southern hospitals become overwhelmed by their own cases of COVID-19.
In response to the outbreaks, the territory brought in wide-ranging lockdowns as of Wednesday, with all non-essential businesses closed and people asked to work from home. Schools have moved to remote learning, with students picking up education packages, and there are thousands of laptops on order for students to learn from home.
“Moving forward they’ll be doing schoolwork,” said Kusugak. “It can get very complicated very quickly.”
Daycare centres may either close or stay open — a move to support essential workers, officials explained.
Recreation facilities are closed and team sports suspended, and there are gathering caps of five people outdoors and five people plus family indoors. The territory will re-evaluate its lockdown in two weeks to decide if they need to go further.
“Knowing that we’re close to our limit in terms of our capacity right now, that’s the rationale for bringing these orders into place,” said Patterson.
Kusugak said the Nunavut government has been watching and learning from outbreaks that have happened elsewhere in the country.
“We knew it was going to come, we knew it eventually would make its way to Nunavut,” he said. “I think we’re handling it as calmly and as good as we would if it happened eight months ago.”
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