Despite some increases in COVID-19 figures, the Yukon government is staying the course of loosened restrictions for the time being.

That’s the word from Premier Sandy Silver, who spoke to reporters Thursday afternoon about the situation. His remarks came almost a week after the government lifted most of its remaining health restrictions.

As of Thursday afternoon, there were 81 active cases and 13 new cases, according to the COVID-19 dashboard. The testing positivity rate is 42.6 per cent.

Silver touched on the news that a new sub-variant of Omicron is now in the territory.

“As with every wave, we try to get the best statistics about what’s happening,” Silver said.

The Star had attempted to contact Dr. Catherine Elliott, the acting chief medical officer of health for comment Thursday on that strain.

She was not available.

Silver said the information he’s receiving from Elliott is that this new strain is potentially not any more dangerous than Omicron, and the existing vaccines are capable of handling it.

Silver told reporters it will take two or three weeks to confirm that the territorial health system won’t be strained by new cases.

“No cause for alarm yet, which is good, but we don’t currently have any strain on our health care system.”

Elliott hasn’t made a formal announcement as to the presence of the new variant, Silver was told – somewhat to his surprise.

He said he would speak to his deputy ministers about the lack of public communication and relay the concerns to Elliott’s office.

“You’d have to ask the acting chief medical officer of health about that,” he said. “If there was a concern, you’d see a press conference right now.

“If the chief medical officer of health needs to communicate, they are an independent office and they will do so,” the premier added.

“We will still have some updates, for sure, but it’d be nice of we got to the point we don’t have to.

“We’re going to see variants for years to come,” he predicted.

The current case numbers, which peaked in the low 80s earlier this week, are still considered to be manageable, he said.

“There has not been a spike, and there’s not been any strain on our health care system,” he reiterated.

Silver also said the high testing positivity rate being seen for the last week is only one piece of data to be used, and that the public shouldn’t read too much into it.

That rate is commonly used to provide some insight as to how much community transmission is occurring, and how many cases are not being identified.

“I caution that being a concerning number,” Silver said. “To me, it’s a piece of information like a sample size. To me, it’s (more important) to look at our hospitals and our communities.”

As long as Omicron is the prevailing strain circulating, and hospitalization rates don’t rise, Silver added, active cases in the 50-100 range are manageable.

If a more dangerous variant, such as Delta, would account for the majority of cases, the government would take a different approach.

“With Delta, I would be very concerned. But our boosters and second shots are lower then as well.

“As long as we don’t have a strain on our health systems, we need to try to get back to normal. We need to socialize.”

See story on new support programs and long COVID concerns.