Protect your health and your community

How to avoid getting COVID-19

• wear a mask and wash your hands often
• use caution in closed and crowded spaces
• attend outdoor events over indoor ones
• get a COVID-19 vaccine when eligible

How to prevent spreading COVID-19

• Stay home when you are sick
• Cover your mouth when you cough and sneeze

COVID-19 and mental wellness

COVID-19 can impact your mental health. Mental health counselling is available.

Use these supports if you need help or you know someone who needs help.

• Hope for Wellness Help Line
• Wellness together Canada
• NIHB mental health counselling
• Taking care of your mental health during COVID-19
• Indigenous mental health
• Shkaabe Makwa: Centre for First Nations, Inuit and Métis Wellness

New support available for mental wellness during COVID-19:

• Mental wellness funding and support for Indigenous peoples

If you are sick

If you are experiencing COVID-19 symptoms such as fever, cough and difficulty breathing you should:

• isolate yourself at home in accordance with your local and provincial or territorial guidelines to avoid spreading it to others
• call your nursing station or local health facility and if appropriate, your provincial or territorial health authority. Tell them your symptoms and your exposure. They will provide advice on next steps

If you may have been exposed

Even if you are not showing symptoms of COVID-19, you need to isolate in accordance with your local and provincial or territorial guidelines if:

• you had close contact with someone who has or is suspected to have COVID-19

or

• you have been told by the local health facility or the public health authority that you may have been exposed and need to quarantine

or

• you are returning to your community after being away for an extended period

To find out more, consult:

• How to quarantine or isolate at home if you have or may have COVID-19

Masks and respirators for non-health care workers

Wearing a non-medical mask or face covering while out in public is recommended and in some cases mandatory when it is not possible to consistently maintain a 2-metre physical distance from others, particularly in crowded public settings. Check with your nursing station or local health authority. In the event of suspected and confirmed cases of COVID-19 within a community, well-fitting medical masks are now being recommended for:

• anyone who has tested positive for or has symptoms of COVID-19
• people who live in an overcrowded setting with someone who has tested positive or has symptoms of COVID-19
• people who are at risk of more severe disease or outcomes from COVID-19
• people who are at higher risk of exposure to COVID-19 because of their living situation
• individuals in the above situations could also consider using a non-fit tested respirator such as a KN95

House hold members are to wear a well-fitting and properly sealed non-fit tested respirators, eye protection (such as goggles or face shield), gown and gloves when providing direct care to individuals with suspected or confirmed COVID-19.

Visitors to health facilities are to wear a well-fitting medical mask or non-fit tested respirator, depending on the local context.

To find out more:

• COVID-19 mask use: advice for community settings
• How to choose, use and care for a mask
• COVID-19 mask use: types of masks and respirators

Caring for someone sick

If you are caring for a person who has been diagnosed with COVID-19, follow this advice to protect yourself and others in the home, as well as those in your community.

To find out more, consult:

• Care at home for those who have or may have been exposed to COVID-19

Hand hygiene and drinking water advisories

If your community is on a boil water advisory or do not consume advisory, you should still use your water to wash your hands with soap and water and for personal hygiene. Infants and toddlers should be sponge bathed in order to avoid accidentally swallowing the water.

If you are on a do not use advisory, your water is not safe for any use. Use bottled water with soap or hand sanitizer with at least 60% alcohol to wash your hands.

If you do not have access to running water, wash your hands in a large bowl and then throw out the water from the handwashing bowl after each individual use.

COVID-19 is not known to spread through water.

To find out more, consult:

• Reduce the spread of COVID-19: Wash your hands
• Short-term drinking water advisories
• Long-term drinking water advisories