15,000 cases a day possible by October
Vaccinations needed for more Canadians 18-39
OTTAWA • If the current rate of transmission of COVID-19 remains the same, Canada could see more than 15,000 new cases a day by the beginning of October, new modelling says.
Dr. Theresa Tam, chief public health officer, says there is an urgent need for more people between 18 and 39 to get vaccinated against COVID-19 to reduce the impact of the Delta variant.
At the current rate of vaccination, new COVID-19 cases could surge past the peak of the third wave and could exceed hospital capacity within months.
“The bottom line is that millions of people across Canada remain unvaccinated and at high risk of COVID-19 infections and severe illness outcomes,” said Tam.
Tam said, however, that the vaccines are working incredibly well, with unvaccinated Canadians 12 times more likely to be infected and 36 times more likely to be hospitalized if they do get infected.
She said it is critical to get up to 80 per cent of all eligible age groups fully vaccinated as soon as possible.
Only about two in three Canadians between 18 and 39 are fully vaccinated now but they also tend to be the most mobile and have the most close contacts.
Tam said nobody wants wide-ranging lockdowns again and that can be avoided if we rapidly increase vaccinations, use masks, limit close contacts and maintain some limits on the size of public gatherings.
Alberta announced on Friday that it will hand out $100 gift cards as an incentive to encourage unvaccinated Albertans to get jabs. It is the first province to offer cash to boost vaccination uptake.
Alberta has the lowest vaccination rate in Canada and leading the country in new COVID-19 cases, recording 1,339 new cases on Thursday.
“This is a crisis of the unvaccinated,” Alberta Premier Jason Kenney told a news conference Friday. “You are putting yourselves and our health-care system at risk.”
The province is postponing non-essential surgeries as hospitals struggle to cope with a rising influx of coronavirus patients and is also reintroducing an indoor mask mandate.
Quebec's health minister wrote an open letter Friday, warning Quebecers they would have to learn to live with the novel coronavirus for the foreseeable future and suggesting collective immunity against COVID-19 is a long way off.
Christian Dubé wrote on his Facebook page that he felt a duty to explain the situation to citizens.
“It was believed until some time ago that it would be possible to achieve herd immunity with vaccination,” Dubé wrote. “But the mutations of the virus always push back this hope.”
More variants of the virus are likely, he said, creating a pandemic that could persist for months or years.
“Instead of looking for the date when all this will end, we will have to learn to live with the virus,” Dubé said. “We will have to accept a certain number of cases and a certain number of hospitalizations if we want to return to a normal life.”
Daily COVID-19 cases continued to rise Friday in Quebec, with 750 new infections. Of the new cases, 83 per cent involved people who weren't adequately vaccinated.
In Quebec 81.3 per cent are considered adequately vaccinated.
This week, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the White House chief medical adviser, said three doses of the COVID-19 vaccine may become the standard regimen for most people.
THIS IS A CRISIS OF THE UNVACCINATED. YOU ARE PUTTING YOURSELVES AND OUR HEALTH-CARE SYSTEM AT RISK.