Colville Lake residents 'meeting the challenge,' as about half the town has COVID-19

People in Colville Lake, N.W.T., are generally doing well despite the fact about half its residents have COVID-19, according to the the assistant band manager with the Behdzi Ahda First Nation.

David Codzi, who's also president of the Ayoni Keh Land Corporation, said the mood in the community of about 155 "has been pretty good."

"We're just meeting the challenge. We're just going through it," he said.

As of Aug. 24, there are 74 people with COVID-19 in the community, according to N.W.T. health officials. A 10-day containment order was issued by the territory's office of the chief public health officer on Aug. 15.

The containment order means there could be no gatherings in homes or public places, except for people who care for others or provide childcare. It also means people can't gather outdoors with people they don't live with, and that masks are mandatory in public indoor places.

Everyone's isolating

Codzi said 18 households out of about 40 in the community have people who are isolating.

"Everybody else is isolated (too) and not really moving around," he said. "There's a few trucks out, like we've got people going and picking up stuff and dropping off stuff. And it's pretty well known that people here are pretty good. We've all isolated. We started doing that right away."

After a while, some community members started coordinating times for the people that are isolating to go outside, providing them with wipes, gloves and masks, and letting their neighbours know where they're going and when.

"[They] keep within their own bubble until this is all resolved," said Codzi, who added that people who haven't received COVID-19 vaccines are being strongly encouraged to do so.

Codzi said he is isolating with his family. While he tested negative for COVID-19, his common-law wife and two young children tested positive.

He said when the containment order was issued, cleaning supplies were difficult to get but eventually came in a few days later.

Codzi said what he would most like to see, to help people get through this, is to have the internet overages waived for this month.

"There are some families that just have children and are going on it all the time. And I hate to be the ones that are looking at their bill and saying, OK, well, you know, having that on their conscience as they're going through this, but then they have no choice but to let them go because they need their kids to do something, too," he said.

He also said the teachers haven't arrived in the community yet for the upcoming start of the school year.

"They're probably still waiting to come in," he said. "And it would depend on where we sit in the coming week. We don't want the children coming in (school) and spreading something around, going back up to the people that didn't catch it."

He said he appreciates the support the community has received.

"We're going to get through it. It's not going to last forever. We just got to do our part. We just got to work together. We're in this together. We're just going to work together better," he said.