Canada’s lockdown will last ‘many more weeks’, warns Prime Minister
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Canada’s lockdown will last “many more weeks” and warned Canadians if the economy is re-opened too soon, all the sacrifices they are making now might be for nothing as the country could see another peak in coronavirus cases.
Mr Trudeau urged Canadians to be patient. He said for the re-opening to occur, there had to be rapid testing on a widespread basis as well as extensive contact tracing for those who test positive.
“We are still a number, a number of weeks away from that,” Mr Trudeau said.
His remarks are his strongest yet against loosening economic restrictions too soon.
Canada has more than 27,557 confirmed cases, including 954 deaths. “We need to continue doing what we are doing now for many more weeks,” Mr Trudeau said.
About six million of the country’s 37 million people have applied for government help since mid last month when businesses were ordered closed and workers told to stay at home as a public health precaution.
Preliminary data from Statistics Canada yesterday showed economic activity collapsed in March, suggesting the drop could be a record 9 per cent.
“We cannot be in a rush to get things going again because if we move too quickly to loosen all these controls everything we are doing now might have been for nothing,” Mr Trudeau said. “We’ll find ourselves in another peak just as bad as this one or worse.”
He said there has been too much talk in recent days of reopening.
“It’s not happening yet,” he said. “Once the experts are telling us we can re-open the economy a little bit, we will take very careful steps and do that.”
Mr Trudeau said instituting widespread testing would be an essential part of re-opening the economy once the first wave of Canada’s epidemic was over.
He said health authorities would need to be able to respond quickly to future outbreaks. New Brunswick corporation LuminUltra is increasing production of reagents needed to provide the required weekly supply for Covid-19 tests in all provinces.