“We have to get on our feet, this is our best way through in the coming winter weeks,” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said at a press conference in Ottawa on Friday. “We’ve seen the impossible choices that hospitals in other countries face when they get overwhelmed and decide who gets an IC bed and who doesn’t. Well, that’s not where we want to be.”
The vast majority of Canadians have dealt with week-long stay-at-home orders and yet the daily number of cases has risen at a high level at best.
Even more worryingly, government officials say the number of deaths from Covid-19 is steadily rising and may soon exceed the levels of the first peak.
“We have yet to see the kind of widespread and sustained declines in the daily number of cases that would indicate that we are bringing the pandemic under national control,” said Dr. Theresa Tam, Canada’s chief public health officer at a news conference Friday.
Health officials released new models on Friday showing that Covid-19 is still on a “rapid growth trajectory” in most of Canada.
Hospital admissions and daily numbers are already higher than those of the first peak in the spring. Earlier this week, the province of Ontario warned that one in four hospitals is out of IC beds.
Data released Friday shows that Canada now has an average of more than 4,700 people treated in the hospital on any given day, with nearly 20% of those patients in ICUs.
All of this comes despite the pre-existing lockdowns in the provinces of Quebec and Ontario. All told, this means that more than 60% of Canadians have a home order and most stores and restaurants are closed for anything other than pick up or delivery.
Health officials on Friday pleaded with provincial leaders to enforce strict measures regarding health care systems at a critical point and already overburdened.
“If we relax measures too soon, the epidemic will revive even more. Therefore, the measures must be consistent and long enough to sufficiently suppress the epidemic growth and allow for continued control,” Tam said.
The grim prediction comes as Canada announced it would receive fewer Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines in the coming weeks. The company announced a temporary delay in its European manufacturing facilities.
Pfizer believes we will be able to catch up by the end of March so we are on track with the total dose pledged for Q1. stretched far beyond their limit, ”said Anita Anand, Canada’s procurement minister at a news conference Friday.
Data from the Canadian government shows that little more than 1% of Canadians have been vaccinated so far. Given growing problems with the supply of vaccines, health officials say the rollout will be too slow to have a significant impact on infection rates in the coming months.
“We don’t have this kind of problem in our hands,” Trudeau said, adding, “I want to be very clear, this doesn’t affect our goal of having enough vaccines available by September for every Canadian who wants one.”