(Yellowknife - April 6, 2022) The Northwest Territories Health and Social Services Authority (NTHSSA) is advising residents that there is a current outbreak of COVID-19 at Stanton Territorial Hospital. All individuals who may have been impacted are known and contact tracing is complete and testing ongoing.

While the Public Health Emergency in the Northwest Territories has ended COVID-19 continues to impact residents and health and social services operations. The NTHSSA continues to practice protective measures to reduce the spread of COVID-19.

As part of efforts to continue to protect staff and patients in facilities the NTHSSA continues to enforce a policy of ensuring COVID-positive staff do not attend work. Other measures in place include universal masking in facilities, self-monitoring for symptoms for staff, daily symptom checks for admitted patients, and admission testing for all in-patient facilities.

The NTHSSA also continues to enforce a vaccine mandate policy for staff; with those who may be unvaccinated tested regularly.

At this time there are no immediate service reductions related to this outbreak, if services are impacted they would be announced through a public notice.

An outbreak is declared when two or more cases (staff and/or clients) are found and transmission is most likely to have happened within the facility. Exact case counts in facility outbreaks will not be announced; at this time there are less than 20 cases associated with this Stanton cluster.

Going forward NTHSSA will notify the public of transmission within facilities when:

• There are unknown impacted individuals who may need to be notified of potential exposure (this is not the case with the current Stanton cases)
• If there is potential for current or future service impacts due to COVID cases leading to staff isolation.

At this time there will be no changes to visitor restrictions at Stanton. Current visitation restrictions can be found here.

The NTHSSA continues to encourage members of the public to practice healthy habits and avoid contact with other people when sick. Anyone who is at high-risk of severe COVID-19 outcomes should seek testing. For more information visit www.nthssa.ca/covid.