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Coronavirus infections cross 9,000-mark in Canada
A new worry for Canada’s public health officials is that more contagious variants of the coronavirus are being detected in the country
The number of confirmed Covid-19 cases crossed the 9,000-mark for the first time in Canada, while public health authorities reported that one of those infections was due to a mutation of the virus that recently originated in South Africa.
With 9,197 cases reported on Friday, the total caseload crossed 643,800 while the fatalities recorded so far have touched 16,700.
The second wave that has seen a surge in cases and deaths this winter has been worse than the incidence of infections in spring last year when the pandemic first raged across the world.
A new worry for public health officials is that more contagious variants of the coronavirus are being detected in the country.
The province of Alberta found the first case of a South African variant in a traveller who returned to the country from overseas recently and is now in quarantine.
Canada’s Chief Public Health Officer Dr Theresa Tam also confirmed during a media interaction that 14 cases of a new variant from the United Kingdom had also been detected in Canada.
The upward trend in cases, including rising number of those with severe illness and deaths, was described as “worrisome” by Tam.
Public health officials have presented modelling data that forecasts the number of cases reaching between 12,000 and 14,000 daily this month.
However, Tam also offered some positive news, as she said that of the 115,072 Covid-19 vaccines administered in the country through December 2020, there were only nine reports of “adverse reactions”, or just 0.008% of the total. “There have been no unexpected vaccine safety issues identified to date,” she tweeted.
Meanwhile, the government continues to face criticism over the slow pace of vaccine rollout in the country, even as emergency authorisation was given to the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines last month and shipments arrived in Canada.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has reasserted that the nationwide inoculation programme will be completed by September this year for those willing to be vaccinated.
“Quantities of both the Pfizer and the Moderna vaccines will scale up in February. We need to make sure we’re getting those doses as quickly as possible, and I can assure you that we continue ongoing conversations with the companies about accelerating the schedule of delivery, so that we can get Canadians vaccinated as quickly and efficiently as possible,” Trudeau said.
Only 0.66% of the population has received at least the first jab of the vaccine so far.
