Canada’s chief public health officer released new modelling today about where the COVID-19 pandemic may be heading across the country and the numbers are anything but pretty.
Dr. Theresa Tam said there could be as many as 60,000 new cases a day by the end of the year if Canadians increase their contact rates.
That’s a twelvefold increase of where they are now.
The current number of daily cases, Tam said, is about 4,800.
That’s a rise of 15 per cent from last week.
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Chief Public Health Officer of Canada Dr. Theresa Tam is seen on Friday as she shared forecasts about the direction the COVID-19 pandemic is taking. (THE CANADIAN PRESS/Justin Tang)
“We are not on a good trajectory,” Tam told a news conference in Ottawa, speaking as governments, health professionals and everyday Canadians continued to grapple with the spread of the virus.
“I think across the board, across Canada, we have to say the time is now, with urgency, that we limit contacts,” Tam said, noting that the virus was spreading across a wider geographic area of Canada than it did during the first wave in the spring.
“The national epidemic curve shows that case counts have far surpassed peak levels seen during the first wave,” she said.
Tam said current modelling predicts that at current rates of contact, there will be a surge of more than 20,000 cases per day by the end of December.
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A woman sits alone in a park in Montreal last Sunday. (THE CANADIAN PRESS/Graham Hughes)
But she warned that if socialization increases, those projections will pale quickly.
Tam said there are about 52,000 active cases in Canada to date, with a cumulative tally of more 315,000 cases.
She said that means less than one per cent of the population has tested positive and that said means the great majority of Canadians are still susceptible to infection.
Tam said the percentage of Canadians testing positive is now about 6.5 per cent–above the World Health Organization’s benchmark of five per cent.
She said the number could indicate that Canada is not testing enough,and is a clear sign that the spread of the virus is accelerating.
So far, 11,303 people have died in Canada from COVID-19.
The modelling shows another 1,000 could die by the end of this month with forecasts showing that at current rates the case total could be between 366,500 and 378,600 and the death toll could climb to between 11,870 and 12,120 by the end of November.
With files from CBC News, The Canadian Press, RCI
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