Christmas now in jeopardy, warns Trudeau

OTTAWA • Prime Minister Justin Trudeau warned Tuesday that Christmas celebrations are in jeopardy as he told Canadians to expect a long winter dealing with COVID-19.

Canada has now seen more than 220,000 cases since the pandemic began last winter and the country reached 10,000 deaths Tuesday. Trudeau said the coming months would be hard, but pleaded with Canadians not to allow COVID fatigue to set in.

“We are in an unprecedented global pandemic. That really sucks, it' s tough going through the second wave,” he said. “It's frustrating having shut down all of our lives through the spring, and now be forced to make more difficult choices and knowing there's going to be a tough winter ahead as well.”

He said Canadians need to keep following public health guidelines to protect holiday gatherings. “It's frustrating knowing that unless we are really, really careful. There may not be the kinds of family gatherings we want to have at Christmas.”

Last month in a national address, Trudeau issued a similar warning saying Thanksgiving celebrations would need to be small, but said at the time “we still have a shot at Christmas.”

Trudeau shared that his youngest son had asked if COVID-19 was permanent and was attending a Grade 1 class where singing was not allowed.

Despite the gloomy outlook Trudeau said he was confident Canadians could rally and turn the course of the pandemic around.

“Vaccines are on the horizon. Spring, and summer, will come and they will be better than this winter,” he said. “Nobody wanted 2020 to be this way, but we do get to control how bad it gets by all of us doing our part.”

Many of the most recent cases have come from so-called “superspreader” events where large gatherings lead to many cases. Public health officers across the country have also said that when doing contact tracing they are finding infected people have been in contact with dozens of people.

Trudeau said the government had a better understanding of the virus than it did in the spring and could target messages to different parts of the country.

“The federal government will be there to support people right across the country, regardless of the situation, regardless of the advice and the restrictions that have been brought in by public health,” he said.

Conservative health critic Michelle Rempel Garner said the PM's message was flippant and ignored the reality Canadians were living in.

She said the lockdowns people would face over the winter could have been avoided if the government had invested in more rapid testing.

“Other countries around the world are not having to simply rely on social isolation and economic shutdown. Many countries around the world have deployed technologies like rapid testing, to keep things open,” she said.

Rempel Garner said the government should have developed a better response in the months since the pandemic began instead of relying so heavily on lockdowns.

She said she hoped the House of Commons health committee would be able to get more information and provide sound advice on a path forward after a motion she drafted passed in the Commons on Monday, asking for information and documents about the government's response so far.

“The measures to prevent the spread of COVID-19 shouldn't be static. They should evolve as best practices emerge and as we get data on what's working and what isn't.”

She said everyone should be following public health advice to keep gatherings small, wear masks and limit the spread of the virus, but said the government had to take some responsibility for helping with COVID fatigue.

Canada's deputy chief public health officer, Dr. Howard Njoo, said the rising cases in the past few weeks were alarming, but so far the system was managing.

“At this point to date, we have not overloaded the health care system. But you can see in certain parts of the country, we are starting to cancel elective surgeries because beds are being filled up by COVID-19 patients.”

But he said staff were tired after the long fight with the virus.

“Many of them are exhausted after what they went through in the spring,” he said. “We depend on them in our time of need when we've become sick and I think now they depend on us to do the right thing.”