Nunavut to cease publishing weekly COVID-19 case counts

Key takeaways: 

• The chief public health officer says reporting will be erratic unless there’s an outburst.
• General updates to Nunavut’s COVID-19 case totals aren’t coming often.

Public updates to Nunavut’s COVID-19 case totals aren’t coming as often as they once did, and the region plans to reduce those back still, says Chief Public Health Officer Dr. Michael Patterson.

The region is willing to raise its public health emergency on April 11. Till recently, Nunavummiut could pull up the government’s website and look at the newest case digits from the last day — but earlier this month, the territory decreased its reporting to once a week.

Patterson said Wednesday those weekly updates would be lowered in the following few weeks.

“Then it will be periodic reporting when we’re asked or on an irregular basis unless there seems to be an outburst in a community. We would be back to delivering more regular numbers,” he stated.

The region will still be tracking cases since people will still require to notify if they test positive for COVID-19.

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Health emergency on track to terminate

Even as cases of COVID-19 are increasing in some regions of Canada and the world, Patterson said numbers are declining in Nunavut right now. Even though Nunavut has gradually reduced public health measures, the health system is not overfilled.

“If we begin to see that happening, we would either locally or across the region consider postponing the easing of further measures,” he said.

He also pointed to Nunavut’s vaccination rates to show how protected Nunavummiut are. The information as of Tuesday indicates about 95 percent of Nunavummiut over the age of 5 have had at smallest one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine.

That creates the chances of COVID-19 lower, and he cited the government also has had better access to treatment and testing over the previous two years.

Source – cbc.ca