Chief Public Health Officer Dr. Theresa Tam released new COVID-19 modeling on Friday that shows Canada could see up to 15,000 cases per day by the end of the month if the rate of vaccination does not increase and more restrictive public health measures are not introduced.
“This is a crucial moment,” Tam said, per CBC Canada. “We have a window of opportunity to rapidly accelerate vaccine uptake and close the protection gap in younger age groups with the lowest vaccine coverage.”
Dr. Tam directed her warning to young adults, describing an “urgent need” for more people between the ages of 18 and 39 to get vaccinated in order to prevent what she described as a rapid worsening of Canada’s COVID-19 situation.
“The moment you get people back indoors … we will see accelerations,” she said Friday at a press conference, reports CTV News Canada.
According to data released by the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC), only 63 percent of Canadians aged 18 to 29 are fully vaccinated and those aged 30 to 39 are only slightly better off, with a vaccination rate of 68 percent.
Dr. Tam also pointed out that younger adults “continue to have the highest rates of infection,” in part because they are more likely to have close contact with people outside their household for work-related or recreational reasons.
A pandemic of the unvaccinated
There are still millions of people across Canada who are unvaccinated, said Tam, saying the country could see case counts decline from the nearly 5,000 cases being seen daily now – if transmission of the disease can be reduced by at least 25 percent.
Citing concern over opening the economy further, and an increased transmission rate, Tam said the modeling warns we could hit that 15,000 number by mid-September.
PHAC says that the number of new cases is increasing among the unvaccinated at a rate 12 times higher than the rate for the fully vaccinated and that the rate of hospitalization is 36 times higher for people who are unvaccinated compared to the fully vaccinated.
The number of new hospitalizations related to COVID-19 in Canada has more than doubled since the last modeling was released on July 30, and is now above 1,200 per day.
Dr. Tam’s warning comes just a few days before Canada, on September 7, 2021, is set to allow foreign nationals who qualify for the fully vaccinated traveler exemption to enter the country for discretionary travel.
The expected “fourth wave” surge will also be happening as Canadians go to the polls on September 20, as Prime Minister Justin Trudeau fights to win the majority of seats in Parliament for his Liberal Party against Conservative Party rival, Erin O’Toole.
