Thane Phillips has seen more people wearing masks in Whitehorse since the Yukon government declared a state of emergency Monday night.
The territory is dealing with an increase in COVID-19 cases over the past week.
Perhaps cases skyrocketed because people became complacent, Phillips wonders. Or maybe it was unavoidable from the beginning. But with the Yukon government’s declaration and the introduction of tough new measures, it’s clear that COVID-19 has made a big comeback.
“I didn’t have any exposures before. I didn’t know anyone who had done it, ”the physical therapist told the Star on Tuesday. “In the last three days I can think of six people that I know well who contracted COVID. It became incredibly real, incredibly fast. “
Phillips and others have wondered how the territory of some 43,000 people, with 85 percent of those over 12 years of age fully vaccinated, went from having reasonable control over the virus to the worst per capita rate for a single jurisdiction in the country. .
The state of emergency comes after 80 cases of COVID-19 were reported in the territory for three days. There are currently 169 active cases. Yukon’s per capita rate is now 174 cases per 100,000 residents. The second highest rate in Canada is Saskatchewan with 87 cases per 100,000.
As part of the emergency measures, the Yukon government will implement mandatory masking, proof of vaccination for bars and restaurants, size limits for gatherings and other measures. Some “individual workplaces” may be forced to close temporarily, the government said in a statement.
The emergency measures begin on Saturday and will continue until at least December 3, according to the statement. The state of emergency could last up to 90 days.
The territory appears to have returned to the start of the pandemic, Phillips said.
“We have all these events where people are starting to get together and act normal, and then the reality of our world just slapped us in the face,” he said.
Dr. Katharine Smart, president of the Canadian Medical Association and a pediatrician in Whitehorse, said one of the biggest concerns with the increase is the hospital’s capacity space. Patients who are seriously ill with COVID-19 are already being transferred to larger centers, he said, ensuring that the hospital’s capacity is not exceeded.
Smart said that the territory has implemented strict measures to prevent the spread of the virus and, while it would have been “reasonable” to bring such measures weeks ago when cases began to increase, the territorial government is not the only one fighting to keep up with COVID-19.
“Unfortunately, the Yukon is learning the same lessons as the rest of the country,” he said, “which is that with the Delta variant, relying on high vaccination rates alone is not enough to prevent community-wide spread.”
Smart said that people who choose not to wear masks after Yukon lifted its mandate earlier this year, a return to classroom learning and increased person-to-person interaction are some of the reasons the virus has made a comeback. .
Furthermore, despite the territory’s decent vaccination rate, Smart points out that a large part of the population, children under the age of 12, still cannot be vaccinated.
Once children under 12 can be vaccinated, things should improve, Smart said, but for now the state of emergency gives the territory the authority to impose the necessary restrictions to curb the cases.
Politically, the reaction to the increase is not so cordial.
On Tuesday, in the Legislative Assembly, opposition parties blamed the minority liberal government for not making use of rapid tests provided by the federal government and for lifting masking mandates.
Third-place NDP party leader Kate White accused the government of ignoring calls to maintain the masks’ mandates earlier in the year.
“Makes one wonder how science in the Yukon was so different from science in the rest of the country until, sadly, we skyrocketed beyond the rest of the country with the highest per capita new case rates in the world. anywhere in the country. ” White said in the assembly. “We are relieved to know that the masking has been recovered.”
Community Services Minister Richard Mostyn defended his government’s record on the virus in an interview with the Star. Mostyn said implementing too many rapid tests could overload the ability to track cases and a mask mandate could not be implemented without a state. emergency to enforce.
He said his government has been “consistent” since the beginning of the pandemic and has taken up the recommendations of the Yukon Acting Medical Director, Dr. Catherine Elliott.
“In the end, the public supported us, they sacrificed a lot during this pandemic,” he said. “But because of his discipline we were able to have a very, very normal existence here compared to many places in the country.”
But Delta has proven to be virulent, he said, and the highly contagious variant is more difficult to quell than previous variants.
“It is overwhelming. It can’t even be traced anymore, ”he said of the case counts.
Despite the current situation, Mostyn is optimistic that “temporary” and “targeted” measures will control the virus and the case count will start to decline in a few weeks.
For Phillips, the cause of the increase is not reduced to one thing. It would be easy to point the finger, he said, but it wouldn’t be fair.
He himself has children too young to be vaccinated. For now, he just wants to keep his family safe.
“Like everyone else, I want this to end,” he said, “but in the short term it’s about trying to create an environment that is as safe as possible for my children.”
Reference-www.thestar.com