COVID cases at a ‘tipping point’
Ontario notched yet another daily record with 939 new cases
OTTAWA — Canadians began the Thanksgiving long weekend amid a surging second wave that pushed public health officials to roll back some businesses and tighten COVID-19 measures in several hotspots.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau warned Friday the nation was “at a tipping point in this pandemic” as he released new projections that suggested the death toll could reach 9,800 by end of next week without immediate efforts to curtail outings and gatherings.
“Not only is the second wave underway, yesterday we hit the highest daily recorded cases — well above what we saw this spring,” Trudeau said as he also announced emergency funds for food banks, groups serving vulnerable communities, and businesses that won’t be able to make rent.
“I know this is discouraging, especially going into Thanksgiving weekend. But remember this: when things were at their bleakest during the first wave, Canadians pulled together and flattened the curve.”
As of Friday afternoon, there were 177,719 confirmed cases and 9,586 deaths in Canada. New modelling suggested there could be as many as 197,830 cases by Oct. 17, with cases rising most rapidly in Quebec, Ontario and Alberta.
Ontario notched yet another daily record with 939 new cases, 336 of them in Toronto, 150 in Peel Region and 126 in Ottawa. But five new deaths and a worrying increase in hospitalizations to 225 from 192 patients brought in tighter restrictions in the three hotspots.
Trudeau urged Canadians to do everything they could to slow the virus in coming weeks, acknowledging that Thanksgiving would have to be a curtailed affair.
“We are all committing together to do everything we can to slow the spread of the virus over the coming weeks, so that we can have a chance to get together in person at Christmas with our loved ones,” Trudeau said in French.
The number of deaths over the past week ending Oct. 8 reached 244, according to a Canadian Press tally.
That is more than the total number of deaths in the previous five weeks combined, and the largest weekly death toll since June 18 reached 294 deaths. The highest single week tally of deaths was the first seven days of May, with 1,198 deaths.
Earlier Friday, Trudeau discussed a range of measures to boost the social safety net while also touting 378,000 jobs added in September when many Canadians were able to return to work as children returned to school.
The unemployment rate fell to nine per cent Friday, but Statistics Canada noted it was still taking mothers longer to return to the workforce than fathers.
There were 1.8 million Canadians unemployed in September, with about 1.5 million of them looking for work.
StatCan says the unemployment rate would have been 11.9 per cent in September had it included in its calculation people who wanted a job, but didn’t look for work.