loved ones are hugging again inside ontario’s long-term care homes, quebec has blessed mask-free, outdoor proms for july and, outside of manitoba, covid-19 is dwindling, canada’s covid odyssey is drawing closer to its end. the wild card hovering on the horizon, however, is delta, the variant behind runaway infections in india and that is now “essentially across canada,” according to the country’s chief public health officer.
advertisement
“we don’t know how transmissible any of these variants are really going to look in a fully reopened population,” said colijn, “because none of them have ever seen a fully reopened population, really. so, we don’t know. do we need 95 per cent protection, or 95 per cent immunized? do we need 85 per cent? what do we really need?”
advertisement
advertisement
according to langlois, as of tuesday, federal data showed 1,350 cases of delta in canada, and 204,140 cases of alpha. (the world health organization last week renamed variants after letters of the greek alphabet , to avoid stigmatizing countries.)
higher infectivity means delta could “rip through unvaccinated populations if life returns to normal in a fortnight,” peter openshaw, a professor of experimental medicine at imperial college london told the financial times.
it also may cause more severe disease. early evidence from england and scotland suggests there may be an increased risk of hospitalization compared to alpha cases, with some areas showing hospital admissions increasing, though the national trend still isn’t clear, reports public health england.
advertisement
advertisement