The territory’s chief medical officer of health says we’re only at the beginning of a harsh season of respiratory illnesses that are stressing the health care system, pharmacies and schools.

After more than two years of pandemic regulations like masking and isolation that kept contagions more contained than usual, this fall, places around the world are dealing with a “tripledemic,” as the New York Times dubbed it – a rise in cases of respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), COVID-19 and influenza.

And the Yukon isn’t immune. 

“We’re just staying very watchful,” Dr. Sudit Ranade, the Yukon’s chief medical officer of health, said in an interview last week.

“I think that many jurisdictions had a couple of weeks where their (health care) system was severely strained. And that strain seems to be reducing. We haven’t gotten to that point yet.”

Though it’s not clear whether respiratory viruses are more prevalent than they have been in the past, they’re certainly spreading more than they have in the past two flu seasons.

In fact, flu seasons practically disappeared during the first two years of the COVID-19 pandemic, when governments across the world, including the Yukon, introduced restrictions to prevent the spread of airborne illnesses.

But the Yukon, like other jurisdictions around Canada and the world, eased its public health restrictions this year. The state of emergency ended in March, along with mask mandates and vaccine requirements.

Then, in November, the territory shifted its pandemic strategy to handle COVID-19 like any other respiratory illness, reducing testing and isolation requirements.

As a result, the Yukon’s hospitals, pharmacies and schools are feeling extra strain this fall.

Ranade said it’s unsurprising to see respiratory illnesses resurge as the territory’s pandemic response changes.

“When we relaxed restrictions on the ways in which people can get together, then we’re going to see a rise in all of the respiratory viruses that would have been transmitted normally,” he told the Star.

Ranade said reinstating health regulations like mask mandates and physical distancing measures would be difficult to impose after more than two years of pandemic-related regulations.

Pandemic fatigue, he said, has reduced the public’s appetite for renewed restrictions. 

In a news conference on Nov. 25, Canada’s chief public health officer, Dr. Theresa Tam, addressed a rise in respiratory illnesses across the country this fall.

She encouraged Canadians to take precautions against the rise in respiratory illnesses this season, but didn’t signal a return to health-related mandates.

Speaking of RSV, influenza, and coronavirus strains, Tam said “there is an increased likelihood that we will encounter one or more of these viruses as we interact with others in schools, workplaces and social settings – especially indoors and if masks are not being worn.” 

She urged Canadians to stay up to date on vaccinations and voluntarily take precautions like masking up to reduce this flu season’s impact on the country’s “extremely stretched health systems.”

Here in the Yukon, shortages of hospital beds and health care workers, along with an absence of any walk-in clinic in the territory, are already making it difficult for Yukoners to access medical services. A bad flu season could make things even worse.

Influenza A is already circulating at significant levels in the territory, and several seriously ill children have had to be medevaced to B.C. Children’s Hospital in Vancouver.

More than 3,000 Yukoners are currently on the territory’s waitlist for a family doctor, meaning emergency rooms are overburdened by people seeking non-emergency services like prescriptions for antibiotics.

Ranade also said if more people need to be admitted to hospitals for treatment of respiratory illnesses, capacity could become an issue fast.

The Yukon Hospital Corp. (YHC) website has indicated that inpatient beds at Whitehorse General have been extremely limited since at least Dec. 1, though space at the Dawson City and Watson Lake community hospitals was still shown to be available earlier this week.

In an email to the Star, YHC spokesperson Isaac MacDonald said Whitehorse General’s emergency department “is seeing an increasing number of patients coming in with flu-like symptoms.

“We anticipate a significant flu season this year with higher than average respiratory illness cases,” the email said.

MacDonald added that numbers are higher than they were in the pandemic, but in line with years before COVID-19 restrictions.

Still, he said, longer emergency wait times may be coming as a result.

Case numbers for respiratory illnesses in the territory seem small – between Nov. 15 and today, the Yukon reported 84 influenza cases, 24 COVID cases and four RSV cases – but those figures don’t paint the full picture, Ranade noted.

“There are still a substantial portion of people who would have these diseases, but whose symptoms are mild enough that they would not present to a place where they would get tested,” he said. 

At the beginning of November, the total number of officially confirmed Yukon COVID-19 cases stood at 4,983.

Figures from Yukon classrooms are more illustrative of the toll this year’s respiratory season is taking on the territory.

For the first two weeks of November, about 23 per cent of students at Yukon schools were absent for at least part of the first two weeks of November, according to figures provided by the Department of Education in an email last Monday.

Those numbers are actually similar to last year’s average from the same time last year, but Ted Hupé, the president of the Yukon Association of Education Professionals, said some classrooms have been hit harder than others.

While the overall average is not unusual, Hupé  said he’d heard from rural classrooms that have had up to 80 per cent of students out sick.

That’s made it hard to staff schools, he said. 

“(When students get sick) it’s usually followed by teacher absenteeism a few days later or a week later, because schools are one big Petri dish on a good day,” he said.

That’s led to teachers covering each other’s classes in some instances.

“The system doesn’t have the capacity to cover all the bases,” he said, adding that he hopes the upcoming holiday break will help ease the spread of illnesses.

“Christmas is coming at a good time.”

Joanne Gibson, the president of the Yukon Pharmacists Association, said pharmacies are having trouble staying staffed with pharmacists out sick or having to stay home with sick kids unable to go to daycare.

She also said pharmacists are working to ensure they have enough antibiotics in stock to treat respiratory infections as more Yukoners seek treatment.

Gibson said she hopes pharmacists could bring some relief to emergency rooms and doctors later this month though.

Starting Dec. 28, she noted, pharmacists will be able to make prescriptions for minor ailments.

Though they won’t be able to prescribe antibiotics, necessarily, she hopes the new authority will take some of the burden off doctors working to treat more serious issues. (See Gibson’s column on flu shots, p. 7.)

That could be a big help because, according to Ranade, the Yukon is just at the beginning of its respiratory illness season – and Yukoners need to prepare.

Aside from getting vaccinated against COVID-19 and influenza – Health and Social Services reports only 8,610 Yukoners have received their flu shot since roll-outs started in October – Ranade recommended Yukoners take preventative health care action this respiratory season.

A balanced diet, regular sleep and exercise prepare the immune system to handle viruses, Ranade said. 

When vaccinations and a healthy lifestyle fail to stave off sickness, Ranade said, it’s important that people isolate themselves from others as best they can, and mask up when they have to go out in public for groceries and other necessities.

“I think it’s the simple, practical things that we’re going to start kind of continuing to reinforce,” he said.

“But they’re the things that I think people have been more attuned to over the last couple of years.”