The COVID-19 pandemic in Canada is slowing because of public health measures, but public health officials are still projecting as many as 66,835 cases and 3,883 deaths by early May.
Dr. Theresa Tam, Canada’s chief public health officer, provided an update on the federal government’s COVID-19 modelling projections at a technical briefing on Tuesday (April 28).
Earlier in the day, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau spoke from outside of his home in Ottawa to give the “bottom line” of the federal modelling projections.
“The measures we’ve taken so far are working,” Trudeau said. “In fact, in many parts of the country, the curve has flattened.”
“But we’re not out of the woods yet. We’re in the middle of the most serious public health emergency Canada has ever seen, and if we lift measures too quickly, we might lose the progress we made.”
As the technical briefing, Dr. Tam began by providing an overview of the current status of the epidemic in Canada.
“There are now 49,025 confirmed cases, including 2,766 deaths,” Dr. Tam said. “To date, labs across Canada have tested over 740,000 people for COVID-19, with about seven per cent of these testing positive. Over 20,000 people have been tested daily, as provinces and territories continue to increase testing capacity.”
Dr. Tam said the objective for this phase of the epidemic in Canada is to control the spread of the virus, by using self-isolation and physical distancing to reduce the number of people any one person infects to less than one other person, ending onward transmission.
Once that happens, the epidemic will die out. Currently, one person is infecting just more than one other person in Canada.
Epidemic growth has levelled off in several provinces, Dr. Tam said, with cases in Quebec, Ontario, and Alberta driving recent growth.
Outbreaks in long-term care and seniors’ homes are responsible for most of the growth of the epidemic, and for 79 per cent of deaths. Outbreaks in other congregate living settings, such as homeless shelters and correctional facilities where physical distancing is difficult, are also driving the epidemic’s growth.
That said, the overall growth of the epidemic in Canada is slowing more than in many other countries. The number of positive cases in Canada was doubling every three days early in the epidemic, and is now doubling every 16 days.
The federal government first released modelling projections on April 9th. At that time, public health officials projected 22,580 to 31,850 cases by April 16th, with between 500 and 700 deaths. The actual number of cases on April 16th was just over 30,000, but with 1,200 deaths — around double the projection.
Current federal modelling is now projecting between 53,186 and 66,835 cases by May 5th, with 3,277 to 3,883 deaths.
Dr. Tam stressed that it is “critically important” to maintain current public health measures until the first wave of the epidemic is under control.
Relaxing measures too soon and too quickly could put Canada at risk of future epidemic waves, she said.
