Revised -The COVID-19 case count in Yukon communities for this week is out – and shows some potentially shocking numbers for Whitehorse residents.

Late this morning, public health officials reported 329 active cases, including 41 new ones.

That brought the number of Yukon residents who have had the virus to 2,125.

Officials reported 74 new cases Thursday. That brought the official case count to 328, up three from Wednesday.

The increases come on the heels of a COVID-19 briefing Wednesday where the acting chief medical officer of health, Dr. Catherine Elliott, announced reduced self-isolation orders in a bid to keep the territory’s testing regime from being overloaded.

Vaccinated people with either two or three doses are now expected to isolate themselves for seven days if they have any symptoms without requiring a positive test. That represents 80 per cent of the Yukon population.

Symptoms include a sore throat, sniffles or a runny nose, and fever.

If you have any such symptoms, Elliott said, you are presumed to have COVID-19.

Partially-vaccinated (one dose) or unvaccinated people are to make the same assumption, and isolate for 10 days.

That’s a change from the standard 14 days of isolation Yukoners are used to.

Unvaccinated people now represent 10 per cent of the population, according to the government figures.

No community case counts were included in the latest report, as that breakdown comes only on Wednesdays.

There were 325 active cases in the territory, the Yukon government’s website reported Wednesday.

Whitehorse had 263 of those cases. Both were record numbers.

Dawson City was officially listed as having 20 cases, though Mayor Bill Kendrick has said many residents believe the true number is substantially higher.

Tagish had six, Carcross has five, with smaller numbers in the rural communities.

Pelly Crossing had three, Watson Lake had two, with one case each in Haines Junction, Old Crow and Teslin.

According to Elliott, though, no one should be reading too much into those numbers.

At Wednesday’s briefing, she said she hoped Yukoners understood the numbers paint only an approximate picture of what’s happening in the territory.

“It’s not an exact count,” she acknowledged.

That was her explanation for an ongoing discrepancy in cases between what government sources are recording and what local officials like Kendrick are saying.

Elliott said she wants people to understand the government numbers come from tests that are performed and then logged into the official database.

While she said that’s a rapid process, there can be a lag between those tests and their formal publication.

At best, the government numbers represent a snapshot of the true picture.

She also mentioned the test positivity rate is currently 32 per cent – indicating there is a high number of cases in the Yukon that are going unrecorded.

She couldn’t, however extrapolate, even roughly, how many more cases there might be.

Elliott also didn’t break down the number of Omicron variant cases in the Yukon, despite a promise before Christmas to do so.

She said only there is widespread community spread of the variant, and it remains to be seen whether it would plateau quickly, as it appears to be doing elsewhere.

“Now is the time to prevent this,” Elliott said. “It’s like a blizzard has blown in. It’s challenging.”

The key tool in reducing further spread during this outbreak is isolation, Elliott said.

That’s why she’s mandating an initial seven-day isolation for fully-vaccinated people who are symptomatic with no testing required.

If you have symptoms such as a sore throat, sniffles, a cough or a fever, and don’t have chronic medical conditions, simply stay at home for a week until you are symptom-free, she advised.

“I am asking a lot of people right now,” Elliott said. “You should stay home (if you have those symptoms).”

Territorial public health officials are still looking at whether to use rapid testing on a more widespread basis.

With the federal government announcing it’s providing hundreds of thousands more such tests to the provinces and territories, the Yukon is expecting to receive 100,000 test kits, according to Premier Sandy Silver, who noted Omicron is spreading “like wildfire” in the territory.

The COVID testing site at the Centennial Motors carwash off the Alaska Highway in Hillcrest has been very busy in recent days, with some people waiting in line for several hours.