TORONTO -- The spread of coronavirus variants in Ontario has caused hospital and intensive care admissions to double, and has driven the risk of death up by about 60 percent, says a member of Ontario’s COVID-19 Science Advisory Table.
“It's roughly a 60 per cent increase in hospital admissions associated with new variants, it's roughly a doubling of ICU admissions, and it's roughly 60 per cent… [of] deaths associated with variants,” Peter Juni, who is also a professor of epidemiology and medicine at the University of Toronto, told CTV News Channel. “That’s what we’re seeing.”
His comments come ahead of a briefing note by table members that is expected to be released on Monday.
Those numbers align with figures coming out of United Kingdom and Denmark, said Juni, which both have been hit by the fast-spreading B.1.1.7 variant. A Danish study released in February showed people infected with the variant were hospitalized at a rate 64 per cent higher than other variants.
“What Ontario sees right now is entirely consistent with international experience,” Juni said.
B.I.I.7 is now believed to be the dominant strain of COVID-19 in Ontario, which reported an additional 2,169 cases on Friday and a seven-day rolling average of 1,855, up from 1,480 the previous week. The province has also seen a rise in hospitalizations.
According to CTVNews.ca's COVID-19 case tracking data, Canada has reported 22,809 COVID-19 deaths out of 954,700 total cases to date.
The rise of the deadlier variant comes as Canadians are increasingly dealing with the stress of a full year of pandemic vigilance. The pace of vaccinations, meanwhile, has frustrated many Canadians, with just 13 per cent of the population having received at least one dose to date, a figure that lags many other countries.
Juni stressed the need to maintain proper distancing and masking measures until the vaccine can be distributed more widely.
“It’s important now that we let go of the notion that the vaccines will just, you know, save us now,” he said. “We did the right thing a year ago. Right now, we can also start to leverage the good weather, go out, and but be safe outside. It means we need to distance.”
Canada is set to receive large shipments of vaccines next week, including 1.5 million AstraZeneca doses from a dose-sharing deal with the United States and 1.2 million doses from Pfizer-BioNTech. But Juni said the public must continue to be vigilant about their behavior.
“If every single resident of the province does this for several weeks, we’ll get this thing under control. The problem is people let it slip,” he said.
