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Yukon testing some asymptomatic people for COVID-19, top doc says

Yukon's chief medical officer of health says that the territory is testing some individuals for COVID-19, even if those people do not show symptoms.

The territorial government has previously said that it would not be conducting asymptomatic testing, out of fears that it may give people a false sense of confidence they are not carrying the virus, and embolden them to ignore public health measures.

But on Friday Chief Medical Officer Dr. Brendan Hanley told CBC's Yukon Morning that the territory has been doing what he called "focused asymptomatic testing."

"We also have been testing people without symptoms in certain situations, and we've done that for some of the exposure sites that have been publicized."

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Hanley said officials have gone looking for people who were considered "higher risk" and done testing, "just to ensure that we're not missing other cases."

"When we do ... asymptomatic testing, we're really trying to focus on where we are seeing possibly higher risk, higher-risk contacts or even higher-risk settings and going after those."

Hanley said this form of "surveillance testing" is very different from doing widespread testing for anyone who wants a test.

"We have seen how that can get us into trouble in terms of overwhelming ... the testing centres or kind of losing focus because you start to pick up false positives which can be misleading. Focused asymptomatic testing though, is already a part of our approach."

Community spread possible

The territory has seen a steady increase in cases of COVID-19 over the last few weeks, with 27 new confirmed cases since Nov.12.

Yukon's current total case count is now at 51, with the latest case announced Thursday.

Hanley said there are two larger clusters of cases in the territory, where the cases are easily linked to one another, along with some smaller clusters.

But there are some more recent cases that officials are still trying to determine the origins of, and there are a few different options of where they could have come from, such as one bigger outbreak or community spread.

"We could even be seeing the beginning of community spread which is obviously something I'm concerned about, and I think over the next few days we should get some clarity as the investigation continues."