Like other Canadians, Inuit have lived through difficult and frightening times during the global COVID-19 pandemic.
It’s challenging to describe the experiences across Inuit Nunangat – the Inuit homeland that spans Arctic and northern Canada – because provincial and territorial jurisdictions collect and publish data in different ways.
No province or territory has tracked COVID-19 cases or vaccination rates of Inuit. Instead, cases, deaths and vaccinations are tracked by location.
Non-Inuit who live in Inuit Nunangat communities are included in the data. And the growing numbers of Inuit living outside of Inuit Nunangat – thousands of people in Ottawa, Montreal, St. John’s and other urban centres – are excluded.
In Nunatsiavut, in northern Labrador, there have been no COVID cases. Nunavik in northern Quebec has seen 50, including two deaths (a rate of 355 cases per 100,000 population, versus the national Canadian rate of 3,976). In Nunavut, there have been 657 cases, and four deaths (1,694 cases per 100,000). Data are not available on the Inuvialuit region in the Northwest Territories.
COVID vaccination rates also vary – considerably – across the Inuit homeland.
In the five Inuit communities of Nunatsiavut, as of July 30, 2021, 79.5 per cent of the eligible population of 2056 have received two doses of the vaccine; 89.3 per cent have received one dose. Some Nunatsiavut communities have very high vaccination rates: in Makkovik, 86.6 per cent of its eligible population of 254 is fully vaccinated, and 97.6 per cent have had one dose.