Amanda Black feels lucky that her symptoms have remained mild since she tested positive last week for coronavirus. She and her six-year-old son, Malachi, have runny noses and can’t taste their food. “We seem to be OK so far,” Black said in an online video from her home in La Loche in northern Saskatchewan. The Dene village of 2,800 people, about 600 kilometres northwest of Saskatoon, is the centre of a large outbreak of COVID-19.
Each day the number of confirmed cases in the area goes up. As of Friday, there were 136 cases in La Loche and 21 among members of the nearby Clearwater River Dene Nation.
The majority of cases are still considered active. So far, two elders who lived in La Loche’s continuing care centre, have died.