Revised - As a new COVID-19 variant spreads through neighbouring B.C., and respiratory illnesses resurge this season following relaxed public health measures, the Yukon’s chief medical officer says the territory has no need to tighten restrictions, but will stay the course in learning to live with the virus.

Speaking with the Star this week, Dr. Sunit Ranade said the Yukon’s health care system handled the social holiday season without any excessive added burden caused by the spread of respiratory illnesses like COVID-19 and influenza.

He said influenza has surged compared to other years during the pandemic, but numbers were about normal compared to previous years.

COVID cases, he said, have remained stable.

“We were a little bit worried that we would get overwhelmed in terms of treatment capacity by having too many people sick in general at once,” he said of the holiday season, when socialization and gatherings are more common. “That didn’t seem to happen.”

The Star asked the Department of Health and Social Services this week for the territory’s most recent COVID case and vaccination numbers, as well as the number of COVID-related deaths in 2022.

There has been no response to the inquiries.

The Yukon Hospital Corp. has some figures, though.

Spokesperson Isaac MacDonald said in an email today that Whitehorse General Hospital doesn’t have anyone admitted with COVID-19 nor any other respiratory illnesses, but is continuing to see higher levels of emergency department visits related to these viral illnesses.

He said staffing levels haven’t recently been affected by these viruses either.

Dr. Ranade said in December that this flu season, which was just beginning, could see a lot of respiratory illnesses spreading this year as masks and other public health guidelines eased. Recently, there’s been 
 another concern.

Asked about the new variant of COVID-19, nicknamed the “Kraken” variant, Ranade said the territory is acting as if it had already arrived in the Yukon.

The contagious variant has been making the rounds in British Columbia this month, with 12 cases reported last week.

Ranade said though the variant is more contagious, there’s no strong evidence that people with updated vaccinations are being severely impacted, so he’s cautious but not exceedingly concerned about it right now.

“The general trend, as we see more and more strains of COVID, just as we see many, many different strains of flu, is that they’re typically more and more transmissible, but less and less severe,” he said.

Ranade also said he dislikes the moniker the XBB.1.5 variant has been given: “Kraken”. 

“(It) predisposes you to a lot of fear about something that we don’t have the basis for having that (much) fear yet,” he said.

Though, as noted, Health and Social Services has been unable to provide recent numbers, Ranade said vaccination rates are reassuring as the new variant spreads south of the territory.

He said booster dose uptake has been stagnating, but people in “higher-risk categories”, be it older Yukoners or the immunocompromised, are keeping up with their vaccinations.

He said that’s reassuring, and encouraged Yukoners to treat the vaccine like a flu shot.

“There will continue to be variants,” he said. “Make sure that you stay boosted when you’re eligible.”

Ranade said keeping up with vaccinations will allow the territory to move on from the pandemic.

He still encourages people to wear masks if they feel uncomfortable or sick when out in public, and to stay home if they can when they have COVID symptoms.

However, he sees no reason to reintroduce pandemic-level restrictions as things are now.

“A lot of that is about judging your own kind of comfort level, right, as opposed to the actual risk level necessarily,” he said.

“And that’s totally fine. But what I would say is, the biggest challenge here is that unless you’re willing to completely cut yourself off from your social life, at a certain point, you will be exposed to respiratory diseases.”

In November, the Yukon shifted its pandemic response to begin treating COVID-19 like any other respiratory illness.

The change, the government said in a press release at the time, was the result of new variants with less severe outcomes, the availability of safe and effective vaccines, high vaccination rates and the availability of treatments that lessen the severity of COVID-19.

British Columbia, where the new COVID-19 variant is already present, currently has no plans to reintroduce pandemic-related public health measures.

Ranade said hospitals weren’t overwhelmed by respiratory virus cases over the holidays, and he’s not yet concerned of any imminent capacity issues.

However, with a lack of family doctors in the territory, many Yukoners use emergency departments for non-urgent care, meaning an uptick in illnesses could place added stress on hospitals.

The Department of Health and Social Services responded after publication with figures the Star asked for earlier this week. They are listed below:

Nineteen Yukoners died of COVID-19 in 2022. Nine of those deaths involved people aged 40-69, five were aged 70-79 and the other five were 80 and older. Five Yukoners were medevaced out of the territory with the virus.

As for vaccinations, 37,185 Yukoners have been vaccinated and close to the same number, 35,756, have received at least one booster. After that, it starts to drop – 21,803 Yukoners have three doses, 10,270 have four and 2,276 have five.

Yukoners aged 70 and older, a part of the population especially vulnerable to the virus, are the highest vaccinated, the department said: 99 per cent are vaccinated and 64 per cent have had at least one booster shot.

Children 4 and younger are the lowest vaccinated demographic: only seven per cent have received a shot. Just less than half of children aged 5 to 11 have had their first dose.

The department also said 37 Yukoners have been admitted to the hospital with influenza since Aug. 28.