Canada’s latest COVID-19 predictions have health officials urging more young adults get fully vaccinated to reduce the impact of the fourth wave.
The Public Health Agency of Canada is out with its latest modelling on the spread of the virus, largely driven by the Delta variant.
That comes after Ontario’s COVID-19 Science Table released its own modelling on September 1st.
If transmission continues at the current rate, PHAC warns we could see up to 15,000 cases per day nationwide.
There were 4,033 cases nationwide as of Friday.
If public health measures reduce transmission by 25 per cent, the modelling predicts around 4,500 daily cases by mid-September and a decline in new infections starting in October.
Chief Public Health Officer Dr. Theresa Tam says the fourth wave of the virus is putting more pressure on hospitals and intensive care units in some jurisdictions like Alberta, Ontario, Saskatchewan, and British Columbia.
Over 84 per cent of eligible people aged 12 years or older have at least one dose of COVID-19 vaccines and 77 per cent are fully vaccinated.
While more people have gotten vaccinated, federal health officials say uptake has slowed down recently.
A total of 12.5 million people are either not vaccinated, still need a second dose, or are too young to be vaccinated.
Dr. Tam says it’s urgent for young adults to get fully vaccinated.
“By increasing vaccine uptake among adults aged 18 to 39 years and speeding up the overall rate of vaccination, […] we could dampen the resurgence to significantly reduce the risk of overwhelming hospital capacity,” she explains.
She underlines that the Delta variant is more than twice as contagious as the original virus, and infected people are two to three times as likely to be admitted to hospital or ICU.
The virus is 12 times as common among unvaccinated people compared to fully vaccinated people.
Unvaccinated people are also 36 times more likely to be hospitalized with the virus compared to the fully vaccinated.
The modelling shows that if we cannot reduce transmission and speed up vaccination, more people could be in intensive care units by October than we saw during the third wave.
Federal health officials recommend reducing the number of people you see in person to 70% of pre-pandemic levels.
More details to come.
