Revised _ The Yukon’s chief medical officer of health isn’t concerned about being left out of the first wave of available COVID-19 vaccines.

During his weekly briefing Tuesday, Dr. Brendan Hanley touched on the announcement Monday that the federal government is purchasing 249,000 doses of the Pfizer vaccine for 14 locations in Canada – none of which are in the Yukon or the North.

Distribution of that vaccine could begin sometime this month.

Echoing comments made Monday by Premier Sandy Silver, Hanley said he had no plans to lobby federal officials for early access to any of the vaccines that might become available in the near future.

“I haven’t been lobbying for the Pfizer vaccine because of the logistical difficulties,” he said following the briefing. “It’s a very limited release, it’s a dry run, and the Pfizer vaccine is designed for a large-population release.”

The Yukon has been recognized as a priority population, Hanley said, as have Indigenous communities, seniors and health care workers.

Those categories are all a significant part of the Yukon demographic, he noted.

The Pfizer vaccine requires the use of ultra-cold freezers, none of which are currently available to the Yukon government. While the freezers are small, the logistics of safely moving them, particularly to remote locations, is in question, he suggested.

“The freezers hold 975 doses, so you have to have a thousand people people ready to receive them, because you don’t want to waste any doses.”

Like Silver, Hanley said the Yukon is looking more toward the Moderna vaccine, which is a single-dose medication without the more-complicated requirement of the Pfizer product.

“So I’m not at all concerned,” Hanley said.

Both he and Silver said they’re confident more news of the vaccine distribution front is coming this week.

An announcement Tuesday by outgoing U.S. President Donald Trump that will bar any vaccines from being exported to other nations isn’t expected to have much of an effect on the process, a Yukon government official said.

“The federal government is leading procurement of COVID-19 vaccinations for all of Canada,” senior cabinet communications official Matthew Cameron said Tuesday afternoon.

“The Government of Canada is not concerned with the comments by President Trump and don’t expect it will have any meaningful impact on supply or Pfizer’s ability to meet its contractual obligations to Canada.

“As such, we’re not concerned that this will have impacts in Yukon.”

As of this morning, the COVID case counts in the Yukon are now at 58, according to Yukon.ca.

No information is available on the latest case.

Case 57 is located outside of Whitehorse, but Hanley wouldn’t disclose the exact location. It’s related to existing cases in the city.

Cases 55 and 56 are also city cases.

Hanley described the situation as an outbreak, but there is no clear indication of community spread as yet.

He was asked if a lockdown had been considered, such as the one Nunavut officials brought in to control the virus spread in Arviat and Whale Cove. He said the situation here does not warrant such a drastic move.

A full-scale lockdown is a potentially devastating action that should be reserved for the most dire of situations, he added.

“We believe in a proportionate response,” Hanley said. “We have not seen an explosion of cases, and we’re doing pretty well yet.”

He stressed Yukoners need to continue to concentrate on a few simple measures to control the spread of the virus.

He urged people to stay home if they are sick, particularly from work. Workplaces have been traced to the spread of several of the newest cases in recent weeks, Hanley said.

He also stressed the need to maintain a strict social bubble of approximately 10 people, and to continue to follow physical distancing guidelines and the Safe Six protocols.

With the Christmas season upcoming, many people might have more difficulty keeping up with these measures, but Hanley said they’re crucial to weather the next two weeks.

That will tell the tale if the current outbreak can continue to be brought under control, he said.

That doesn’t mean, though, that people should be discouraged from shopping or visiting restaurants or bars if they are careful to follow the protocols.

Bars and restaurants are potentially high-risk areas, and that’s why new measures to trace patrons who eat in are now in effect to make contact tracing easier.

“We should be patronizing local businesses as we always do,” Hanley said.

If necessary, further restrictions could be introduced. He said some are currently under consideration, but he provided no details.

Hanley and Silver said they hadn’t seen any indication of resistance to the new mask regulations. Nor had they heard of any fines being levied.