What is a 'recovered' COVID-19 case in the North? Depends on the region
All 5 cases in N.W.T. are recovered, 8 recovered cases in Yukon
There was some good news about COVID-19 in the North this week — all five confirmed cases in the Northwest Territories and eight cases in Yukon have recovered.
But what criteria is each territory using to measure a recovered case?
Yukon is counting a case as recovered once a patient is feeling better and it has been 14 days since the start of symptoms.
Yukon's chief medical officer of health, Dr. Brendan Hanley, says the territory no longer tests patients to see if they have recovered.
Hanley says the initial guideline was to consider a case recovered after two negative tests, but he says that it is no longer found to be reliable.
"The reason is the test that we use is so sensitive — it actually detects dead or leftover molecular material that may be present, but means nothing about the transmission possibility of disease," Hanley said at a media briefing on Monday.
"It's like dead, leftover virus."
Hanley says the dead virus can be detected for several weeks.
N.W.T. taking a different approach
The Northwest Territories is measuring recovered cases with testing.
"A patient, once they have recovered from symptoms, must have two negative tests completed with a 24-hour gap in between before we are considering them recovered," writes Mike Westwick, the manager of communications for COVID-19 response with the Department of Health and Social Services, in an email to CBC News.
The Northwest Territories is still testing because "it's viewed as an additional safety check by our Chief Public Health Officer Dr. Kami Kandola."
"Basically, it's a measure to provide some more certainty that a person cleared their infection. These safety checks may change as we learn more about COVID-19," Westwick writes.
"But it's important to note that tests are not done until symptoms are cleared after the necessary period of isolation."
Nunavut has had no confirmed cases of COVID-19.
In an email to CBC News, the communications manager for Nunavut's Health Department, Alison Griffin, says Nunavut will follow the same criteria as Yukon.