Prime Minister Justin Trudeau warned Canadians that public health measures, including restrictions on indoor social gatherings, should continue for weeks as new variants of Covid-19 appear and a slow deployment of the vaccine, the risk of causing a third dangerous wave of the virus.
“We need to continue to take strong public health measures,” Trudeau said during a press conference Friday, adding, “If not, we could see a third wave that is even worse than the second or first, and I know they are not the news you want to hear. “
Canadian public health officials on Friday launched a new alarming model indicating that not even current public health measures will be enough to contain a third wave if fed with faster-spreading variants of Covid-19.
“We need to make sure that even as provinces seek to loosen certain restrictions, other restrictions are maintained and there is the ability to … respond quickly when variants appear,” Trudeau said.
The new modeling underscores the fact that “variants of concern” have now been detected in all provinces and continues to spread. Based on projections published by public health officials, current public health measures would not be sufficient to contain the spread of the virus in the spring if new, more contagious variants are applied.
“A resurgence is very likely if people leave public health measures behind right now. What you want to do is avoid this top-down yo-yoing effect. We need to avoid complete blockages and curfews and all these things trying to maintain a strong level of public health measures, ”said Dr. Theresa Tam, Canada’s head of public health in a model presentation on Friday.
The province of Ontario announced Friday that the city of Toronto and one of its neighboring regions will remain closed, with an order to stay at home, until at least March 8, as the threat of the spread of new variants continues. worrying health officials.
Canada remains quite vulnerable to a third wave, as new variants of the Covid-19 continue to spread and the launch of the vaccine remains painfully slow across the country.
“We need more vaccines, more vaccines will solve massive problems,” Ontario Prime Minister Doug Ford told a news conference in Toronto on Friday.
Like other provinces and territories across Canada, Ontario has managed to vaccinate the vast majority of residents and staff in long-term care homes. These residents continue to represent the most vulnerable to Covid-19 in Canada.
But there has been no significant vaccine release in other vulnerable groups except in indigenous communities. The commander who led the vaccine launch in Ontario characterized the situation as a “vaccine drought.”
“We didn’t waste time while we were in that drought, with a minimal amount of vaccines to use, which we’ve been doing in preparation for the day when more will arrive,” retired General Rick Hillier said at a conference release in Toronto on Friday.
Hillier said his vaccine task force would now prioritize “patient-facing” health workers, among other at-risk groups, and said he hoped vaccine dose shortages would improve over the coming weeks.