After 3 years of COVID-19, here’s how Canada’s ‘endemic’ future may look
World Health Organization declared the COVID–19 outbreak a global pandemic.Schools across the world shut down, workplaces turned remote and the fast-spreading virus revealed the fragility of many countries’ health-care systems.
Since then, the virus has claimed close to seven million lives, of which more than 51,000 were Canadians. Read more: COVID-19 now appears to be in a ‘steady state’ in Canada Fast-forward three years and COVID-19 hospitalizations and deaths are declining, more than 70 per cent of Canadians have contracted the virus at least once and effective vaccines and treatments paired with previous infection have allowed many to live somewhat normal lives again.Some experts now say the pandemic is slowly transitioning to an endemic state — when a disease, like COVID-19, is consistently present, often within a particular area or region.
Examples of this include the flu, malaria, ebola and hepatitis B.“I think we are seeing that point,” explained Dr. Zain Chagla, infectious disease physician and associate professor at McMaster University in Hamilton.“We are seeing death rates lower since the beginning of the pandemic, we’re seeing health care utilization slowing, we are seeing the population having immunity to this,” he said.Dr.
Theresa Tam, Canada’s chief public health officer, echoed this sentiment.Speaking at a media conference Friday, she said Canadians should not expect a surge of COVID-19 in the upcoming months.“We are now at a point in Canada where COVID-19 activity has reached a relatively steady state.
United States
|
Cases: 46 252 513
Deaths: 750 423
Recovered: 0
|
India
|
Cases: 34 321 025
Deaths: 459 652
Recovered: 0
|
Brazil
|
Cases: 21 835 785
Deaths: 608 235
Recovered: 0
|
United Kingdom
|
Cases: 9 215 683
Deaths: 141 607
Recovered: 0
|
Russia
|
Cases: 8 494 589
Deaths: 237 619
Recovered: 0
|