The recent outbreaks of COVID-19 appear to be on the wane in the Yukon, but it’s too soon to relax public precautions.

That was the message from Dr. Brendan Hanley during his weekly virus update new conference, held this morning.

Case counts remain at 59, with no new cases in the past two days. One case remains active in the Yukon.

“That’s good news after the cluster of cases we’ve had,” said Justice and Education Minister Tracy-Anne McPhee, who also participated in the news conference.

Hanley wanted to remind the public to renew their focus on the safe six plus one, particularly with Christmas closing in.

Forty-four new cases have been recorded since mid-October, with 34 of those in Whitehorse.

Most of the cases over the last few weeks have involved younger adults from 20 through 39 years old, Hanley said.

Most of those cases have come from exposures to known locations around Whitehorse, and most are from close contacts through work and home settings.

Hanley said he was releasing those statistics in an effort to maintain a balance between protecting the privacy of individuals, and serving the public interest.

That demographic is the same one in which most cases across Canada are occurring, he said, making it a priority to reach out to them.

Interestingly, it doesn’t appear the Yukon cases are crossing most demographic lines otherwise, including ethnic sectors. That’s somewhat different than in other regions of the country.

Hanley said he wanted people to continue to double-down on restricting their contacts to people only within their social bubbles over the next few weeks.

That renewed focus is particularly important to consider, he said, with the news that vaccines might become available as early as January.

People might want to relax their guard knowing the vaccines are coming, but Hanley said it will be some time, certainly months, before control measures can start to be lifted.

“We are seeing no cases associated with international travel, of course, or domestic travel,” Hanley said. “We’re seeing little risk of transmission, but we can’t discount it.

“We have new energy and new hope with the arrival of the vaccines. We can see the finish line, but we’re not there yet. We are still at risk of seeing the curve go up.”

McPhee said more charges have been laid for violating the pandemic guidelines in recent weeks, including one charge for failing to wear a mask where required.

She declined to release details on that, other than to call it “an egregious case”.

The government and health officials are still trying to use education and information to address breaches of the regulations, and are saving enforcement for last-resort scenarios, McPhee said.

One charge was laid for a person or persons refusing to stop at the border, she said, but again, no details were provided.