Spread of COVID-19 slows in Canada, but caution advised
Much work to do before expected second wave
• T he sp re ad of th e COVID-19 pandemic in Canada is slowing down, but health officials warned it could come back with a vengeance this fall if contact tracing and testing aren’t stepped up.
The country is expected to have between 98,000 and 107,000 confirmed cases of the virus and between 7,700 and 9,400 deaths by the middle of June, according to modelling data released by the government on Thursday.
To date, about 94 per cent of the 7,495 deaths in the country are among those aged 60 or over, according to the data. That age group also makes up more than 70 per cent of the hospital admissions for the virus.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said the situation remained serious.
“The pandemic is still threatening the health and safety of Canadians,” he said. “While we start loosening some restrictions, we also have to strengthen other measures like testing and contact tracing.”
Tr u d e a u said people need to keep a two-metre distance from each other, wear a mask when that’s not possible, and wash their hands frequently.
The numbers show more than 90 per cent of the new cases in the last two weeks have been in Ontario and Quebec.
The government didn’t include long- term projections for the virus as it did in previous models, which in April predicted between 11,000 and 22,000 deaths over the course of the pandemic.
Dr. Theresa Tam, Canada’s chief public health officer, said they need to better understand how far the virus may have spread in the community, among people who may not have received a lab test to provide a fuller model of the pandemic.
“We know the lab confirmed cases are probably just the tip of the iceberg.”
The government announced plans for broader serological testing several weeks ago, but no results have been announced yet.
The data of confirmed cases shows the virus appears to have peaked in Canada in early April and new infections have generally been on the wane since then. However, if adequate measures aren’t in place, the government is predicting the number of cases would skyrocket this fall.
In October, without those public health measures, the virus could be infecting more than three times as many people as it did during the April peak, potentially swamping hospitals and other resources.
“These models all tell us that if we relax too much, or too soon, the epidemic will most likely rebound, with explosive growth as a distinct possibility,” said Tam.
Testing and contact tracing have to be stepped up and people have to continue to keep their distance from others and to wash their hands frequently as the lockdowns and closures end, she said.
The modelling information also showed the reproductive value of the virus has been below one for several weeks in Canada. That value is a measure of the virus’ spread, indicating how many people are infected by each person with the virus.
When it is below one, as it currently is, the virus gradually dies out unable to find new hosts to spread. Tam said that’s encouraging news, but the value has gone up and down over the last few weeks and has come close to rising above one.
“We will need to keep it consistently below one for more than three weeks,” she said. “Without a vaccine or treatment, public health measures remain essential to control the epidemic.”
The data also revealed how easily the virus spread in crowded situations such as long-term care homes, prisons and meat-packing plants.
As of Thursday, there were 93,000 cases in Canada. Nearly 20,000 of those cases had been in long- term care homes, 833 were tied to prisons or jails and more than 3,000 included the country’s largest single outbreak in Alberta, which were connected to meat processing plants.
It’s clear the virus spreads in in - door spaces where people are in proximity to each other, Tam said.
“Close, crowded spaces, close contacts lead to what we might call the larger clusters, or sometimes what we call super spreading events.”
if we relax too much, or too soon, the epidemic will most
likely rebound.