Two Yellowknife students have tested positive for COVID-19.
Chief public health officer Dr. Kami Kandola said one student each at École St. Patrick High School and Sir John Franklin School had been infected.
According to Kandola, as students are wearing masks during school hours, the risk of transmission still remains low.
Public health officials are reaching out to potential contacts of the infected persons.
The father of a St. Pat’s student who has to isolate provided Yellowknifer with a copy of a letter he received from the Northwest Territories Health and Social Services Authority.
“You are not a contact if someone you live with is a contact (e.g. if your child was possibly in contact with a probable or confirmed case at school – they are a contact, but you are not),” it reads. “You are a contact if you have been directly exposed to a probable or confirmed case during their communicable period.
“The OCPHO is working closely with school administrators and Yellowknife public health staff to ensure that the appropriate public health response is in effect.”
For the students that have been vaccinated and are known contacts to the students tested positive is recommended to get tested and continue learning in the classroom.
Yellowknife Catholic Schools superintendent Simone Gessler posted on Facebook Sept. 1
There has been one inmate at the North Slave Correction Centre test positive for COVID-19, Kandola said.
Contract-tracing is taking place letting everyone who had contact with the individual to self-monitor for COVID-19 symptoms.
Territory-wide, there are 123 active cases in the NWT.
Two of the cases are non-NWT residents.
There are 52 active cases in Yellowknife, as of Sept. 1. Kandola states there is a low level of community transmission in Yellowknife.
Kandola reminds residents the current mandatory masking order in indoor public places is still active.
A visitor ban at Stanton Territorial Hospital expired Thursday morning, Sept. 2, at 8 a.m.