Spread of COVID-19 slows down, but projections show more deaths expected: Tam

Advertisement

Advertise with us

OTTAWA - New models released by the federal government show a pandemic paradox is playing out in Canada as more people die from COVID-19, even as the increase in new cases slows down.

Read this article for free:


By clicking the button above, an account will be created and you will begin to receive some of our recommended newsletters. You may opt out of any newsletter by visiting your Email and Communication Preferences page or by clicking "unsubscribe" at the bottom of any email.

or

Already have an account? Log in here »

To continue reading, please subscribe:

Digital Subscription

One year of digital access for only $1.44 a week*

  • Enjoy unlimited reading on winnipegfreepress.com
  • Read the E-Edition, our digital replica newspaper
  • Access News Break, our award-winning app
  • Play interactive puzzles

*Billed as $5.77 plus GST every four weeks. After 52 weeks, price increases to the regular rate of $19.95 plus GST every four weeks. Offer available to new and qualified returning subscribers only. Cancel any time.

To continue reading, please subscribe:

Add Free Press access to your Brandon Sun subscription for only an additional

$1 for the first 4 weeks*

  • Enjoy unlimited reading on winnipegfreepress.com
  • Read the E-Edition, our digital replica newspaper
  • Access News Break, our award-winning app
  • Play interactive puzzles
Start now

*Your next Brandon Sun subscription payment will increase by $1.00 and you will be charged $17.95 plus GST for four weeks. After four weeks, your payment will increase to $24.95 plus GST every four weeks.

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 28/04/2020 (2375 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

COVID-19 CANADIAN DEATHS SCENARIOS

OTTAWA – New models released by the federal government show a pandemic paradox is playing out in Canada as more people die from COVID-19, even as the increase in new cases slows down.

Canada’s chief public health officer Dr. Theresa Tam said the number of total cases is levelling out in several provinces.

She credits physical distancing measures meant to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus for cutting transmission rates in half over the last three weeks.

Chief Public Health Officer Theresa Tam speaks during a technical briefing, Tuesday, April 28, 2020 in Ottawa. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Wyld
Chief Public Health Officer Theresa Tam speaks during a technical briefing, Tuesday, April 28, 2020 in Ottawa. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Wyld

At the same time, the models show there will likely be more deaths than initially expected.

“We are seeing the tragic paradox of the epidemic playing out,” Tam said Tuesday in Ottawa.

“As the epidemic comes under control, and the growth of cases slows, the severe outcomes and deaths continue to accrue, as COVID-19 takes a heavy toll among highly susceptible populations.”

The initial case fatality rate of 2.2 per cent used for the government’s April 9 projections underestimated the number of deaths, Tam said. A large number of outbreaks in long-term care homes meant the fatality rate was actually much higher.

The government has since increased the fatality rate to 5.5 per cent, and now forecasts between 3,227 and 3,883 deaths by May 5.

The fatality rate in Canada is likely to continue to fluctuate, Tam said.

“Outbreaks in long-term care and seniors’ homes are driving epidemic growth in Quebec, Ontario and Nova Scotia and are responsible for the majority of all deaths in Canada,” she said.

The greatest challenges are currently in Ontario and Quebec, which account for about 80 per cent of cases in Canada.

The good news is the spread is slowing drastically. Earlier in the pandemic, each infected person was statistically likely to infect 2.19 people. Distancing measures have reduced the rate of transmission so that infected people now infect only one.

The goal is to make sure infected people don’t pass the virus on to anyone.

Canada’s case count has increased more slowly than most countries. Three weeks ago, when the government first presented its projections for the virus, the number of cases in Canada was doubling every three to five days. Today, it takes closer to 16 days to double.

That has Canada tracking along the best-case scenario in the government’s long-term model, although Tam warned it is less reliable because it is based on projections rather than real data.

According to that model, Canada can expect between 4,000 and 44,000 deaths if less than 10 per cent of the population becomes infected.

Those projections have not been updated to reflect the high rate of fatality seen in the last few weeks, however. And Tam warned that fatality rate could climb higher still.

“Until the epidemic is over you actually don’t know the true case-fatality rate,” she explained.

What ultimately happens will depend largely on how the epidemic plays out in long-term care homes, Tam said.

In the best-care scenario, the first wave across Canada would come under control before autumn.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said the measures put in place to slow the spread of the virus are working, but warned Canada is not out of the woods yet.

“We’re in the middle of the most serious public health emergency Canada has ever seen and if we lift measures too quickly, we might lose the progress we’ve made,” Trudeau said Tuesday at his regular briefing outside his residence at Rideau Cottage.

He said everyone needs to be very careful to protect themselves and the most vulnerable, like those in long-term care homes.

“How many new cases there are, how many losses we have to mourn, whether our hospitals can continue to cope. It’s all up to all of us,” he said.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 28, 2020.

Report Error Submit a Tip

More Stories

Election results: School trustees 2026

Staff 1 minute read Preview

Election results: School trustees 2026

Staff 1 minute read Friday, Oct. 23, 2026

Below you’ll find live 2026 election results for school trustees in Winnipeg divisions.

We can display results only for wards in which Winnipeg voters cast a ballot; we do not have access to live results reporting for school boards outside of Winnipeg.

 

Read
Friday, Oct. 23, 2026

Brian Bowman wins mayoral battle

Aldo Santin and Mary Agnes Welch 6 minute read Preview

Brian Bowman wins mayoral battle

Aldo Santin and Mary Agnes Welch 6 minute read Thursday, Oct. 23, 2014

In the end, it wasn’t even close.

A mayoral race that was supposed to be a head-to-head battle between privacy lawyer Brian Bowman and former NDP MP and MLA Judy Wasylycia-Leis turned into a rout on election night. Wasylycia-Leis, the experienced politician, had held what looked like an unassailable lead for months, but Bowman, the outsider who promised Winnipeggers a better, prosperous future, chipped doggedly away at it.

“I’m excited to tell you that positive change is coming to city hall,” Bowman told roaring supporters at the Inn At The Forks after making his way into the small ballroom accompanied by his wife and two young sons.

He said he hadn’t expecting such a landslide victory, but had believed that the campaign was building momentum.

Read
Thursday, Oct. 23, 2014

The landscape that taught us to see

Stephen Borys 6 minute read Preview

The landscape that taught us to see

Stephen Borys 6 minute read 2:01 AM CDT

The white pine stood at the edge of the lake, leaning out over the water, its branches bent by years of wind and weather. Beyond it stretched an expanse of blue water beneath a clear sky, a distant tree line and other pines rising along the rocky shoreline. From the deck above, the landscape seemed both expansive and remarkably still.

I had been looking at it for only a few moments when Tom Thomson and the Group of Seven entered the picture. Not literally, of course. But once the association appeared, I could not unsee it. The pine became The Jack Pine and The West Wind. The surrounding rocks, water and sky called up A.Y. Jackson, Arthur Lismer, Franklin Carmichael and Lawren Harris. A landscape I had been looking at all weekend suddenly became part of a visual history Canadians have carried with them for more than a century.

Perhaps that is the Group of Seven’s greatest achievement. They did not simply paint the Canadian landscape. They changed the way we see it.

I was at the lake for a quiet weekend, reflecting on the cultural, community and development projects that occupy much of my work through Civic Muse. Increasingly, I see these pursuits as part of the same conversation — place and identity, how we understand it, care for it and decide what is worth carrying forward.

Read
2:01 AM CDT

Adult education should be the foundation of the North

Jim Silver 5 minute read 2:00 AM CDT

Major economic developments are, we are being told, coming to northern Manitoba, focusing on the port of Churchill and the railway system that leads to it, and the production and export via that port of various commodities. Many challenges, particularly environmental, lie along that path, and they deserve particularly serious consideration if any development is to proceed.

One aspect of northern development about which almost nothing has been said is: “Who will do the work in the north?”

For decades past and still today, great reliance has been placed on bringing skilled tradespeople and other skilled workers to northern Manitoba from the south. The result has been that not only has the bulk of corporate profits been drained south, but so too have wages. As a result, rates of poverty are higher and formal educational levels are lower in the north than elsewhere in Manitoba. This is obviously detrimental to the north and particularly to those who live in the north.

If northerners themselves are to benefit from economic development in the north by forming the skilled labour force that will be needed, then we will need more of those northerners to be educationally prepared to undertake training for skilled employment.

World Indigenous Business Forum comes home to Winnipeg for first time, ponders questions for future prosperity

Aaron Epp 5 minute read Preview

World Indigenous Business Forum comes home to Winnipeg for first time, ponders questions for future prosperity

Aaron Epp 5 minute read Tuesday, Oct. 27, 2026

When Nicola Shirley-Phillips imagines what the Indigenous economy in her country might look like 100 years from now, she doesn’t mention social media or artificial intelligence. Instead, she envisions a holistic way of life where people work alongside each other in a way that cares for the planet.

“I see community (and) I see us being more respectful of all the energies around us — our water energy, our climate (and) the soil,” she said. “In all of that, there are opportunities for us to create businesses and opportunities to provide our services.”

Shirley-Phillips, a serial entrepreneur, organic farmer and community economic development specialist from Jamaica, shared her vision Tuesday morning during a panel discussion focused on Indigenous women and prosperity.

The discussion was one of the first items on the schedule during the first full day of the World Indigenous Business Forum at the RBC Convention Centre in Winnipeg.

Read
Tuesday, Oct. 27, 2026

Carrying a torch for tiki

Eva Wasney 5 minute read Preview

Carrying a torch for tiki

Eva Wasney 5 minute read Monday, Nov. 15, 2021

A paper tiki mask is the only indication that the door it’s affixed to leads somewhere other than a dive bar. Ring the doorbell and walk through the kitchen, however, and you’ll be transported to an island-themed lounge that’s equal parts kitschy and comfortable.

“This is just from people’s houses, like my mom’s,” says Allan Pineda, pointing to the wood carvings, water-buffalo horns and rattan furniture decorating the room. “A lot of the stuff you see in here, you’d see in a Filipino’s house back in the day — like second-wave immigrants in the ‘60s and ‘70s, they’d bring this stuff home (from the Philippines).”

Pineda is a local chef and part of the team behind the Bahay Kubo Tiki Bar, a pop-up Filipino drinking and dining experience hosted weekly at an undisclosed Winnipeg establishment.

The details are hush-hush because the temporary eatery is meant to operate like a speakeasy. The dinners are an offshoot of Baon Manila Nights, which Pineda started as a way to highlight Winnipeg’s Filipino culinary scene.

Read
Monday, Nov. 15, 2021