Confirmed COVID-19 case at Mary River Mine Iqaluit,

News Release

Confirmed COVID-19 case at Mary River Mine

Iqaluit, Nunavut (August 11, 2021) – Dr. Carolyn Pim, Nunavut’s Acting Chief Public Health Officer, today announced a positive case of COVID-19 at the Mary River Mine 176 km southwest of Pond Inlet.

“On August 9, we were informed of a presumptive positive case of COVID-19 at the Mary River Mine,” said Dr. Pim. “The individual tested negative before boarding the charter to the mine on August 5 but developed symptoms on Monday and was tested again at that time. The mine test was sent to Iqaluit for confirmatory testing with a positive result on August 10.”
Nunavummiut have begun returning to work at the mine site over the last two weeks, with at least one identified as a contact to the positive case. All contacts and the positive case are in isolation and there are no plans to evacuate the site.

The positive case and contacts are isolating at the mine and there has been no contact with communities in Nunavut. All workers are tested in conjunction with arriving on site, multiple times while on site, and before departing the site. A negative result is required before returning to any community. As part of the extensive controls in place on site, Baffinland has made vaccines mandatory for all workers on site as of August 1, which reduces the risk of acquiring or spreading COVID-19 and severe infection from the virus.

Anyone who has reason to believe they have been exposed to COVID-19 is advised to call the COVID-hotline at 1-888-975-8601 between 10 a.m. and 6 p.m. EST, or notify their community health centre right away, and immediately isolate at home for 14 days. Please do not go to the health centre in person.

For all the latest information on COVID-19 in Nunavut, go to: https://www.gov.nu.ca/

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Media Contact:

Chris Puglia
Acting Manager, Communications
Department of Health
867-975-5949
@email