As COVID-19 case rise, here’s what to expect from the pandemic this winter

Canada could have a more normal holiday season than last year, but it will take work in the face of rising COVID-19 case numbers, experts say.

Canada is experiencing “a bit of turbulence” when it comes to COVID-19 case counts, Canada’s chief public health officer said Friday.

“There may be bumps in our trajectory over the coming weeks, with further easing of public health measures, and spending more time indoors during the cooler weather,” Dr. Theresa Tam said at a press conference.

Despite this, experts say Canada is probably not headed for a winter as grim as last year’s, even if people and governments still need to take precautions to make sure things don’t get worse.

Daily cases in Canada increased 11 per cent over the past week, Tam said on Friday, and they will probably continue to rise.

“With the highly contagious Delta variant continuing to pre-dominate, the risk for surges and disease activity is likely to increase with more time spent indoors, particularly where there are low pockets of vaccine coverage,” she said.

“Currently, severe illness trends are stable but we need to keep infection rates down to prevent increases.”

Canada is a little ahead of where it was last year already, in terms of case numbers. On Nov. 10, 2020, 4,302 new cases of COVID-19 were reported across Canada, according to data from PHAC. This year, on the same date, only 2,601 cases were reported, though they are trending upwards.

“What’s concerning a lot of us is what’s going to happen in the next few weeks,” said Dr. Don Vinh, an infectious disease specialist and medical microbiologist at the McGill University Health Centre. “The numbers have either plateaued or even started to rise, for example, in Ontario and Quebec.”