Canada’s chief public health officer Dr Theresa Tam on Friday struck a cautiously optimistic note that the surge of Covid-19 cases, driven by the more transmissible Omicron variant, may have peaked.
Tam, in a statement released on Friday, said that a modelling update from last week had suggested that the Omicron surge would peak in January and recede by February, but the latest data has “early indications that infections may have peaked at the national level, including daily case counts, test positivity, Rt (or effective reproduction number), and wastewater surveillance trends”.
Despite this, hospitals and intensive care units continue to be under strain given the large number of cases in Canada.
Multiple Canadian provinces, including Ontario, Quebec and British Columbia, have started easing restrictions that were imposed as the Omicron-driven fifth wave mounted.
However, there could still be “some difficult weeks ahead and potential for more bumps along the way”, Dr. Tam said, adding that vaccinations and several effective treatments have led to health authorities to “remain hopeful” these would change the nature of the pandemic to “reduce severity going forward”.
In the latest seven-day period between January 14 – 20, an average of 25,821 new cases were reported across Canada daily. While this is a 28% decrease compared to the week prior, “infection rates remain elevated and are increasing in some jurisdictions”, according to the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC).
Laboratory test positivity rate remains elevated at 23% “indicating continued widespread community transmission”, it said.
An average of 10,041 people were being treated for Covid in hospitals each day during that period, which was 38% higher than last week and exceeds all previous peaks.
Since the start of the pandemic, there have been 2,868,862 cases of Covid-19 and 32,220 deaths reported in Canada.
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