- Canada’s third wave of coronavirus is affecting young people more severely than before.
- Senior health officials say the rise in infections is fueled by new variants of COVID-19.
- The new wave is causing blockages and new restrictions in several provinces.
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Canada is battling a wave of coronavirus infections fueled by new variants that are sickening much younger adults than hospitals are used to seeing.
On Saturday night, the country exceeded 1 million registered cases of coronavirus since the start of the pandemic. The third wave of coronaviruses hit mainly the provinces of Ontario, Quebec and British Columbia, prompting the three to implement new restrictions to prevent spread.
Canada’s director of public health, Dr. Theresa Tam, recently announced a 64% increase in new cases involving coronavirus variants – 90% of which involved variant B.1.1.7 first found in the UK in September.
Ontario, in particular, reported an influx of much younger patients in ICUs. Nearly half of the province’s COVID-19 ICU patients are under the age of 60, officials announced this week.
“It is getting very alarming here. It is spreading fast and it is much faster than the last two waves,” Dr. Kashif Pirzada, an emergency physician in Toronto, told CNN. “The people who fill the ICU are now in their 30s, 40s and 50s.”
Pirzada recently tweeted images of blurred-looking lungs from ICU patients in their 30s.
—Kashif Pirzada, MD (@KashPrime) March 21, 2021
“As the new variants spread, you will see that COVID-19 is killing faster and younger,” said Adalsteinn Brown, senior scientific adviser to the Ontario government, at a news conference this week. “It is spreading much faster than before and we cannot vaccinate quickly enough to break this third wave.”
Ontario has enacted a one-month “emergency brake” in response to rising infections. The new restrictions will close gyms, in-house restaurants and personal care services, CBC News reported.
Quebec, however, has implemented a blockade in three different cities, closing non-essential schools and businesses, and promulgating a stricter curfew. British Columbia also banned meals, religious services and indoor physical activity for three weeks for three weeks.
Canada has had an extremely slow release of vaccines, mainly due to delays in importing doses. The country does not have the capacity to manufacture its own vaccines. As of April 1, only 1.75% of the population was fully vaccinated and only 11.86% had received at least one dose, according to government data.