Michael Patterson was concerned — and then stumped.
Within 24 hours, contact tracers isolated 20 people in the mostly Inuit community on the northeastern tip of Baffin Island who might have been exposed to the infected resident. Thirteen were swabbed for the virus. They tested negative.
“We were a little bit confused,” said Patterson, Nunavut’s top doctor. So he had the original swab retested. This time, it was negative.
The territory announced the false positive, the population of 39,000 scattered across an area slightly larger than Mexico breathed a sigh of relief, and Patterson revised the total number of confirmed covid-19 cases back down.
To zero.
More than a month after the false alarm, Nunavut remains the only state-level jurisdiction in North America not to record a single case of the virus that has sickened millions and killed more than 375,000 people worldwide. Every other Canadian province and territory and every U.S. and Mexican state has reported at least a few.
“There are still no confirmed cases or probable cases of covid-19 in Nunavut,” Premier Joe Savikataaq announced during a news conference last week. “And I’m always happy to say that.”
Keeping it that way is vital — and has meant making some tough decisions.
The territory’s remoteness — its 25 hamlets and capital of Iqaluit are connected to one another and the rest of Canada only by air — might help reduce the risk of the virus arriving. But it also makes it one of the most vulnerable places in Canada were the virus to spread.
Nunavut’s one hospital, in Iqaluit, has 35 beds. Most Nunavummiut leave the territory for medical attention, from chemotherapy to diagnostic imaging to childbirth. There are no intensive care beds, and only a dozen ventilators.
A chronic shortage of housing in a territory where average temperatures are far below freezing most of the year means several generations typically live under one roof, making social distancing difficult. Nunavut also struggles with food insecurity and outbreaks of tuberculosis, a respiratory illness introduced by Europeans centuries ago.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau apologized last year for the government’s handling of tuberculosis in the Arctic from the 1940s to the 1960s. Inuit were torn from their families, sent to sanitariums and never returned as part of what he called “a larger history of destructive colonialism.”
Inuit, who make up 85 percent of Nunavut’s population, are 300 times more likely to get tuberculosis than any Canadian-born, non-indigenous person.
“If the virus did get into a community, that would be potentially quite catastrophic,” said Collen Davison, an epidemiologist at Queen’s University in Ontario.
So Nunavut implemented strict measures. The territorial government banned most outsiders, including other Canadians. Critical workers and returning residents, including medical travel patients, must undergo a 14-day quarantine at a government-selected hotel in Ottawa, Winnipeg, Edmonton or Yellowknife in the neighboring Northwest Territories. Only asymptomatic residents with a letter from Patterson can return.
A total of 908 residents have completed the quarantine, according to health department spokesman Scott Hitchcox; nearly 240 others are in isolation. He said the government had spent $2.8 million on the “isolation hubs” as of May 6, and 140 people have been denied entry.
Some complain the measures are too stern. One Iqaluit woman told the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. that quarantine felt like “jail.” She could get fresh air outside only when escorted by security.
“I understand their concerns,” Patterson said. “We’re not going to pretend that it’s going to be an enjoyable experience. . . . This is the best way to minimize the chance of that situation where we have multiple outbreaks scattered across a few communities at the same time.”
He doesn’t think the curbs on travel will work indefinitely. But he said they would be among the last restrictions lifted.
Mumilaaq Qaqqaq, who represents Nunavut in Parliament, recently returned to her hometown of Baker Lake — an inland hamlet where you can see “for kilometers and kilometers” — after a 14-day quarantine.
She feared bringing the virus into the community and supports the restrictions. But she said it’s possible they wouldn’t have to be so severe if the federal government had addressed long-standing inequalities in Nunavut around health care and housing in the first place.
“There were a lot of things that could have been done so that people aren’t feeling as frustrated or stressed or upset,” Qaqqaq said. “I constantly feel like I’m trying to justify why our lives should be treated just as anyone else’s.”
The federal government announced support for northern airlines and has set aside hundreds of millions of dollars in aid for indigenous communities during the pandemic. But Qaqqaq said some of the money promised to Nunavut was slow to arrive, and is only a Band-Aid.
Nunavut begins reopening Monday. Day-care centers will open, but schools will remain closed — a much more cautious approach than has been taken in hard-hit provinces. Construction firms in 19 hamlets may get back to work on key infrastructure such as airports and housing after outside laborers have finished their quarantines.
After two weeks, officials will decide whether restrictions should be tightened, maintained or eased further. The territory must move carefully, Patterson said, because many tests are sent to labs in the south and results can take several days.
“If we’re not cautious and there is covid in territory,” he said, “we could have many more contacts and more cases by the time we know about the first case.”
Donat Jeanson manages a grocery store in Clyde River, a community of about 1,000 people on the shore of Baffin Island’s Patricia Bay. Originally from Winnipeg, he feels “proud” to live in a territory that has avoided the virus, he said, and “can’t complain” about the restrictions.
The impact of the pandemic on supply chains means his Northern Store — the “hub” of Clyde River — has had problems stocking products such as diapers, baby wipes and rice.
Jeanson said many people are following the social distancing guidelines and wearing masks at the store. He hopes the territory continues to keep the virus out.
“People are very close-knit,” he said. “It would be a bad situation.”
