TORONTO (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 30th April, 2020) Canada's Chief Public Health Officer Dr. Theresa Tam said on Thursday that she is concerned by the growing number of novel coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreaks among indigenous communities in several of the country's provinces.
"I am also concerned about increasing numbers of COVID-19 in First Nations communities in several provinces," Tam said during a cabinet ministers' daily update on the COVID-19. "We must get ahead of things to protect and support these communities, ramping up testing and contact tracing to find where chains of transmission are occurring."
The increased level of concern comes amid the first confirmed COVID-19 case in the remote northern territory of Nunavut.
Indigenous and northern communities have been identified as areas of heightened vulnerability in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.
As of Thursday, Canada's public health agency identified 52,056 cases of the novel coronavirus, including 3,082 virus-related fatalities.
