“Frankly, it’s scary to see cases increase at home and around the world, day in and day out,” Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told a news conference in Ottawa on Friday, urging Canadians to follow health guidelines while they deployed vaccines around the world. the country.
“Quantities for both the Pfizer vaccine and the Modern vaccine will increase in February,” he said. “Remember that Canada has the largest number of vaccines insured per capita in the world, which means that by September we will have enough vaccines for all Canadians who want them.”
Some provincial leaders have said federal authorities have not yet administered enough doses to meet the demand for vaccinations for priority groups such as health workers and residents of long-term care centers.
Vaccine anxiety comes when Canada’s second wave of pandemics severely affects hospitals, as admissions exceed hospitalizations during the first wave.
According to the Public Health Agency of Canada, the country’s 7-day average for new daily cases stands at about 7,600. There are currently more than 4,300 people hospitalized and more than 800 patients in critical care, a record number.
The provinces are blocked in the middle of the waves
Canada is experiencing a post-holiday hike, although most Canadians were told not to meet with anyone outside the home to spend the holidays.
Ontario, Canada’s most populous province, has warned that its hospital system is at a breaking point and it may soon be necessary to move patients from one region to another as beds fill up.
“There will be an alarm clock call, a real wake-up call,” Ontario Prime Minister Doug Ford said during a news conference Friday.
And Ontario could be next, Ford suggested, saying people need to “stay home to save lives.”
“If these basic measures continue to be ignored, the consequences will be more severe. The shutdown will not end in late January and we will have to look at more extreme measures,” he said.
The province of Manitoba, like most other Canadian provinces, extended its closure for two weeks on Friday, citing 355 new cases of Covid-19 directly related to vacation meetings. Officials noted that these positive cases could have infected more than 1,900 people, and some revealed they had been in meetings with more than two dozen people.
For the first time during this pandemic, Canadian health officials in many provinces are beginning to run out of overvoltage capacity in hospitals, with Ontario in particular struggling to create and provide more beds for the ICU.
“Today’s numbers are, to be frank, terrifying. It’s going the wrong way,” said Dr. Barbara Yaffe, Ontario’s associate medical officer of health, during a news conference Friday as Ontario beat a one-day record in new cases.
“There are more and more people hospitalized, more and more people with ventilators. Hospitals are starting to have to reduce surgeries and other important procedures that require ICU. We have more and more outbreaks in the congregated care, especially in the “We have increased rates of positivity, even in children now,” he said.
CNN’s Dakin Andone contributed to this report.