The Yukon government will be moving to further loosen travel restrictions for families.

“It’s a tiny bit of risk for a lot of benefit for families,” Dr. Brendan Hanley, the chief medical officer of health, said during this morning’s COVID-19 weekly briefing.

Hanley and Premier Sandy Silver announced that children under the age of 12 – who are not yet eligible to receive a COVID vaccine – don’t have to self-isolate if they enter the territory from Outside if their parents or guardians are fully vaccinated.

When the government first announced it would loosen restrictions for fully vaccinated travellers effective May 25, it said the exemption from self-isolation didn’t apply to unvaccinated children travelling with family members.

That would have left many people in the dubious position of having to stay home to look after their children – even when they didn’t have to self-isolate themselves.

That caused some consternation amongst the public, and has been a frequent topic of conversation on social media.

Hanley said the government had been considering the matter since the announcement on relaxed travel restrictions had been made.

He said he didn’t know about any public pressure on the issue. Rather, he said he had been waiting for some clear science-based evidence that could be presented and analyzed before making a decision.

Hanley said that review indicated that while there is a small risk of virus transmission from younger children, it was an acceptable risk.

Children in the affected age range are generally less susceptible to COVID-19 infections, he explained.

“The relative risk is lower. There’s a difference in response with younger children, and reduced transmission.”

Hanley said the collective wisdom amongst Yukon officials is that these children who were “surrounded by the safety of a vaccinated family” were in little danger themselves, and posed only a slight threat to others. He called it a “pragmatic” decision.

“There’s not much risk in vaccinated families,” he said. “This was something we needed and wanted from the start. We were just waiting on an evidence-based recommendation and we needed more time for that.”

The date the changes will be in effect for families has not been announced, but a mid-June target was mentioned this morning.

The government also announced how it would handle travellers from other parts of Canada beyond B.C.

While the Yukon was prepared to exempt self-isolation for Canadian travellers from other jurisdictions who have been fully vaccinated, a process for vetting them had not been established.

Silver said today the government will acccept documents indicating vaccination had occurred in the absence of a national verification standard or system.

Details weren’t offered beyond that people could show or submit electronic copies of their information for the moment, until a more comprehensive system is put in place.

“We will soon be in a position to lift more restrictions,” Silver said.

Seventy-eight per cent of Yukoners have now received their first dose of the Moderna vaccine. Seventy per cent now have both shots.

There are no new or active cases of the virus.