Ontario, Canada, says it is on the third wave of Covid-19 – and officials fear the vaccine will not be launched fast enough

Ontario, Canada, says it is on the third wave of Covid-19 – and officials fear the vaccine will not be launched fast enough

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“We are on the third wave. The numbers are rising slowly, they are not going as fast as predicted by the modelers,” said Dr. David Williams, Ontario’s medical director. He added: “Now we are starting to see impacts on our hospital fees, our ICU admissions have increased again, our hospital admissions have increased again.”
It was worrying news for a province where the majority of residents have been in some state of blockade since the end of last year.

Canadian public health officials have also warned that vaccine implantation would not take place quickly enough to halt what could be a potentially devastating third wave in other areas of the country, further stressing the hospital’s capacity.

“COVID-19 activity has stabilized at a high level since mid-February and the average daily case count is increasing,” said Dr. Theresa Tam, Canada’s director of public health, on Monday.

“While vaccine programs are accelerating, it will be important to maintain a high degree of caution. Any relaxation of public health measures must be done slowly, with improved testing, screening and genomic analysis to detect worrying variants,” she said in a statement.

Canada has reported more than 938,000 presumed or confirmed cases of the coronavirus since the start of the pandemic and has recorded more than 22,000 deaths.

Public health officials have been warning for weeks that Canada has risked a third wave fueled by variants that are more transmissible and, in some cases, can lead to more serious illnesses.

A shortage of vaccine

Last month, as the country faced a severe vaccine shortage, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau warned that a third wave was a possibility.

“We have to keep taking strong public health measures,” said Trudeau during a Covid-19 update in February, because “otherwise, we could see a third wave that is even worse than the second or the first, and I know that it’s nothing new you want to hear. “

On Monday, he said vaccine shipments will continue to increase and that Canada is expected to receive up to 2 million doses this week, the maximum it has received in a single week since the approval of four vaccine candidates for emergency use.

But officials across the country now face the possibility that vaccines will not be distributed in time to prevent a significant number of hospitalizations and deaths.

Also on Monday, the province of Alberta said it would postpone reopening as it also saw an increase in hospitalizations due to Covid-19.

“Half of those who are in a hospital bed for COVID are under 65 and almost 90% of those in an ICU for Covid are under 65. Most of them would not be there if they had been vaccinated at this point,” Tyler Shandro, Alberta’s health minister, said during a Covid-19 update on Monday.

While variant B.1.1.7, first detected in the UK, is fueling an increase in cases in Alberta, the health minister also blamed the federal government for failing to guarantee sufficient vaccine doses in time to vaccinate the many people who are still at risk of serious results.

Canada received a boost from the Biden government last week, when the two countries struck a deal that will cause the United States to release 1.5 million of its AstraZeneca doses to Canada in the next few days. The US is storing the AstraZeneca vaccine until it receives FDA approval, which is not likely until at least next month.

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