Canada has surpassed another unwanted COVID-19 milestone following the Christmas weekend.
Canada has officially logged more than two million reported cases of COVID-19 since the start of the pandemic.
The government of Canada’s health website says the total case count was 2,000,976 as of Dec. 26, 2021.
As far as reporting goes, British Columbia is expected to provide tentative numbers on both Dec. 27 and Dec. 28, returning to a full daily update on Wednesday.
On Christmas Eve, British Columbia reported its fourth record-setting day in a row with 2,441 new cases of COVID-19 across the entire province on Friday and 219 linked to the Island Health region — also a record.
Ontario is seeing a drop in new COVID-19 infections for the second day in a row following record-breaking numbers on Christmas Day that topped 10,000.
A large portion of the new cases across the country are being driven by the more contagious Omicron variant.
A news release from the province Monday says that about 75 per cent of all COVID-19 cases in Manitoba are now suspected to be the Omicron variant.
A rise in COVID-19 cases driven by the highly infectious Omicron variant of the virus has renewed concerns among experts about the capacity of Canada’s hospitals and health-care workers to handle another wave of the pandemic.
Paul-Emile Cloutier, president of HealthCareCAN, said the latest wave could make the existing healthcare worker shortage worse. HealthCareCAN represents research hospitals and regional health authorities.
Graham Cox
