Nunavut Association of Municipalities calls for a ban on travel between communities
Request made to help prevent spread of COVID-19
The Nunavut Association of Municipalities asks that all non-essential travel between communities be forbidden until further notice. (File photo)
The Nunavut Association of Municipalities is calling for a ban on all non-essential travel between the territory’s communities to help prevent the spread of COVID-19.
“To date Nunavut has no reported cases of COVID-19. NAM would like to keep it that way,” states a news release issued on Thursday, April 2.
“According to the Public Health Agency of Canada, as of Saturday, March 28, 2020, 65% of the COVID-19 cases in Canada were linked to community transmission,” the release states.
“In order to ensure the effectiveness of the practice of ‘physical distancing’ and to prevent the spread of the COVID-19 virus, NAM asks on behalf of its municipal members that communities prohibit all non-essential inter-community travel including air, boat, snowmobile or otherwise.”
Here’s a definition of essential;
1. Doctor
2. Nurse
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If you want to get really generous;
3. Police (if there is not already police in the community).
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At this point anything else is non-essential.
By the way cargo planes will still come in with food, and medicine.
If you are not described in the above you are not important enough to think that your travel is essential. Stay at home. Self isolate. Make believe that everyone else has a zombie virus, it will keep you safe.
I believe you forgot a couple other essentials
1) municipal water and sewage services
2) the grocery stores
3) Power company
4) Telecommunications
*housing skilled tradesmen to keep on heat and plumbing systems
The municipal service workers and grocery store workers aren’t required to travel between communities, which is what The Old Trapper was mentioning. The power company workers may be required to travel if there was a problem in another community.
Exactly, thanks Alan. Yes there are certain essential services in each community as noted by some of the posters. Sewage and water, power, food. We are right back to the basics, but as long as you have water, shelter, food then you can continue for another day. One day at a time. We will get through this.
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Help your neighbour, but keep 2 meters away.
It would be nice to see a stronger system in place earlier than later. Most out at night are gathering in groups and up to no good.
If the argument is that kids often need an escape from their homes then do something about that problem with some of the money flowing in. I see gov and organizations throwing money around willy nilly with zero strategic thinking. Temporary programs that create further dependency on government programs. Hand outs- not hand ups.
Let’s start with a curfew?
That’s a good call. Better to be safe than sorry. Once again, please wash your hands, keep your hands away from your face. Keep your distance especially at the coop stores, northern stores.
well..hmmm if theres nothing here..than why keep drilling the knife deeper into the already screwed up economy..??..if and when the 1st case appears in Iqaluit..then we have a concern..but not till then..
Because the latest research indicates that people can be spreading the virus around before they have symptoms, or may even have no symptoms at all. So that “first case” in Iqaluit? All you know is that it’s the first case YOU KNOW ABOUT. And even if it is the first person, and they show symptoms, they may have been shedding virus for days before the first fever or their first cough.
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Everyone in Nunavut has experienced first hand the way that someone brings in a cold, and a few days later everyone in town has it, or a load of people all come down with a stomach flu at the same time, or all the kids at the daycare get sick at once. If you’ve lived here you know, first hand, how fast something can spread when everyone is carrying on normally. Now imagine something that can spread without you even knowing it’s there to begin with, getting that several days of a foothold, while people carry on their merry way doing the things and being in conditions that spread viruses fast to begin with , let alone one that spreads as fast as the COVID-19 virus does.
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If that first case is someone who shows it very soon after having come into town and went into their 14 day self-isolation right away and were strict about maintaining their distance, then yes, sure there’s good odds it’s been contained. But if that first case is someone who didn’t show symptoms right away, and they participated in life as normal, and the community carried on as normal, then when that first case shows up? It’s too late. The virus has already spread, and probably beyond the ability to contain it any more.
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So if that first case shows up in Iqaluit, and everyone’s been heading to the Legion for a few brews, and going to school, and wing night at the Storehouse, and spending the day in crowded offices…it’s too late to “have a concern”.
I agree with all the restrictions. Everyone needs to learn a new behaviour (social distancing, social hygiene practices, staying home) It’s evident that there are others out there still putting us at risk. These rules are not to keep us down they’re in place to help our vitality. Inuks are FN resilient take pride in it! So start listening to our community and territorial leaders, be strong and do your part for our community and people. If it hits we’ll be ready together to shutdown territory wide.
What about the absurd idea I just heard that the GN wants all teachers back to work!?! How will this work!!?? Somebody in the GN has not been watching the news if this is indeed true.
If this is true, and I would have to question it, I have faith that the teachers are smart enough to tell the GN to take a long hike out on the tundra.
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Yesterday the Ontario Premier Doug Ford said that their models project 3,000 to 15,000 deaths, yes deaths not infections, from Covid-19 over the next 18-24 months. That is based on current information and practices. If no self isolation measures had been taken, such as shutting down nonessential businesses, the death toll could have been 100,000.
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Now things may actually be better than the models predict, but they may not. Just watching the news conference Premier Ford was worried and shaken, you could see it in his attitude, tone of voice, facial expressions. He knows that things are going to be bad, and is worried that this could easily get out of hand and be a disaster and tragedy.
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If Covid-19 gets loose in Nunavut it will be a disaster.
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Stay home. Stay safe.
I got it on good word KSO and thus the GN are planning something to get teachers back in Nunavut and back in the building to make it seem like they are working. This would bring hundreds back and with it Covid 19. The GN must be called out on this absurd idea and let people shelter in place and not try to cause more unnecessary DEATH. The message is due out Monday, so time will indeed tell. If true, this must be shot down by people who think logically.
If the GN calls teachers and/or students back then people should march into the Minister’s office and physically toss him out.
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The GN needs to put everyone’s life ahead of the need to finish the school year. After all it’s not going to be the first time that individual students have been advanced a grade without completing the entire year’s coursework.
Confirmed today: teachers have been mandated to return to work in their communities April 21.
Now would be a good time to set up Covid Board. So we can argue complian, and waste money. No it’s time to get real this Virus kills. We should all each, of us pay attention to the Department Of Health recomendations. Yes I am concerned we all need to be
Hello Everyone.
As someone who lives in Ontario about 40 minutes North of Toronto. I beg you to please stay home. It is scary down here. The line ups at grocery stores are real, the police giving $1000 tickets for not social distancing are also real. Things are only getting worse. I believe the next step will be martial law. I know of several people who currently have the virus and they are scared to death. The rest of Canada I’m sure feels the same as I do when I say that we are living in a war zone fighting an enemy we can’t see. We are up against an army with nothing more than a slingshot. This thing spreads so rapidly that one case is one too many. Please stay home, stay safe. No amount of partying or hanging out is worth the death of a loved one.
The new slogan down here is; “Nunavut is having None-of-it!”. Don’t take the saying lightly. Do anything and everything to keep this virus out! You wouldn’t open your front door to an axed murderer wielding his weapon? Well think of Covid 19 as the axe murderer. You wouldn’t wait for him to get in your house if you could stop him before he entered your front door. Please I beg you stay home!! It will be worth it in the long run.
I imagine that every person I see has the zombie virus. Anyone infected can infect you just by breathing on you, and there is no telling when they will “change” from a virus infecting carrier to an actual brain eating zombie.
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It keeps you on your toes.
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Stay home, stay safe.
Hello The Old Trapper
That’s a good way of imagining it. You’ll be a lot more cautious that way. Current news is that now the first case of a Tiger at The Bronx Zoo in New York has tested positive for Covid 19. Which means animal’s can catch it. Apparently their was a total of 6 tigers and lions that fell ill. So even the animals are not immune. We are in very dangerous times. Stay informed, stay home and please stay safe.
Us inuit are in danger our our agreement is powerless after just 20 years of standing. We have no virus as we speak and we are not saying or fight back the way we dont have it. All I’m hearing is we have law to abide. WE DONT HAVE IT… WE DONT NEED TO BE INVOLVED IF INUIT HAS A SAY.
Pure Inuk, you simply don’t get it.
Covid-19 knows no Race it will transmit to everybody if we (including you) don’t take this seriously. People can carry and spread this without showing any symptoms. Just because Nunavut has no positive test DOES NOT MEAN IT IS NOT HERE.
Stop looking at this thru singular race(s) other than the HUMAN RACE!!!!!!!!
Watch Puvirnituq and see just how immune Inuit are.
If there is no virus what is the issue. People are heavily restricted from coming into the territory to bring said virus. If there is an unfortunate case reported yes to the restriction on travel to prevent its spread, but in the meantime life should be as normal possible. We live as scattered families throughout the territory and should be able to be with family if we need to care for each other during this time and a phoney travel restriction won’t be helpful.
The virus could arrive at any time. If someone was asymptomatic, they might not show any sign, and since everybody isn’t being tested, you wouldn’t know they were infected. And they go on their merry way, and unknowingly infect a few people in the community, and they unknowingly infect a few people before they show symptoms, and you travelled to that community at that time and you picked it up. But you’re not going to show symptoms either, so you travel home.
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And then the first symptoms start showing up in that first community, and it takes four or five days to get results. And during those days, you’ve been shedding virus to your family, to your friends, to your co-workers, to the people at the Northern and the Co-op, and since hey, the virus isn’t here, everyone carries on normally.
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And after a few days of this, the news comes out there was COVID-19 verified in that other community. And so you, who don’t have any symptoms, go into your isolation. But you see, now it’s too late. You’ve already spread it around, and other people, living life as normal as possible, they’ll start showing symptoms after a few days. After they’ve spread it around.
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And then, not too long after that, the first medevacs for people who need intensive care. But there are only so many planes. Some of the people with weaker lungs or poorer health, they’re not going to last long enough for that medevac. Does your community have a ventilator? There’s 7 in the territory. What happens when that second person needs it, and you only have one to keep someone alive until the plane comes?
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What if that second person is a member of your family?
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Tell me, would that have been worth it just so you could keep things as normal as possible?
I feel much safer with our borders closed and any person wanting to come to my territory has to be clear before coming in to the territory. Nice for a temporary visitor or tourist try to impose their will on us once again. We take measures to prevent any spread as is thank you for your advice but I am tired and fed up with outsiders trying to run our lives.
dear bullshit for your info. (if you care) Keith Morrison is one of our best ambulance driver and first responder (volunteer) and fire fighter so he knows what he is talking about and has volunteered for years in our community, thanks. Be safe and be nice!
This “outsider” has lived in Nunavut for 22 years, and I’m not trying to run your life, I’m trying to save your life. And mine.
You may have noticed we have no roads to permit us to leisurely drive to see family members in need so we need to keep the only ways of going open. As long as there is no confirmed case(s) we need this available. I along with everyone will take steps to stay safe so leave us alone for the time being.