How do you know when a pandemic is over? Prompted by the arrival of vaccines and the inherently hopeful warmer weather of March, that’s the question Canadians are asking. And they want an answer from their governments.
That answer is surprisingly straightforward. But before we get there, it’s important to state that the COVID-19 pandemic is not over in Canada. One year and more than 22,000 deaths later, we are still in it.
Cases are rising again in a number of provinces, and the more contagious and deadly variants of the virus appear to be behind the increase.
Parts of Ontario are being particularly hard hit. On Friday, Peel Region took the monumental step of closing an Amazon warehouse where hundreds of workers were infected. All 5,000 employees must stay home and self-isolate.
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At the same time, the sluggish arrival of vaccines in Canada means that the rate of vaccination – except among one key, vulnerable population – is not yet high enough to have had much of an impact on the infection rate. We’re in a state of epidemiological limbo.
And that is agonizing, because there are early signs that, once vaccinations hit their stride, the number of cases and deaths will drop significantly.
That’s already happening in long-term care homes. The vaccine priority given to residents and caregivers appears to have put an end to the slaughter of aging and vulnerable Canadians that marked the pandemic’s first two waves.
In Ontario homes, which saw dozens of COVID-19 deaths every day in January and February, even a single daily fatality is now an anomaly, according to provincial data. Quebec was reporting more than 100 deaths a week in long-term care in December and January; last week, it had just three.
And then there is Israel. Four million of the country’s seven million adults have received two doses of the Pfizer vaccine, while another one million have had their first shot. The results are incredibly promising.
On Feb. 1, the country had a seven-day average of 7,311 daily new cases. On Sunday, that number was 2,486. Since peaking in late January, daily deaths have fallen from 7.49 per million to fewer than two.
As a result, life is returning to normal. People are going to restaurants, seeing friends, hitting the gym and partying in the streets of Tel Aviv.
It shows that Canada, too, will return to normal. In fact, this country’s virus statistics are now better than Israel’s – in part because, though Israel vaccinated quickly, it lifted restrictions even faster. Canada’s seven-day average of deaths per million people is 0.84, down from 4.0 in early January.
So when will Canada’s pandemic be over? When enough people are vaccinated that the risks from COVID-19 are reduced to a manageable level – a level of risk that will never fall to zero.
It’s likely that people will still be contracting the virus and its variants for years, and some will die. But thanks to vaccinations, the number of deaths will hopefully soon be low enough that Canadians can live with the outcome – just as they do when it comes to the roughly 10 Canadians who die of influenza each day in an average year, or with the more than 10,000 people who are killed or seriously injured in traffic accidents every year.
But that day isn’t here yet. COVID-19′s toll on the elderly appears to be abating but, as for the rest of the population, the vaccination level is still too low to party like it’s 2019.
The same goes for much of the rest of the world. Europe is in the grips of another wave of infections and deaths. And the United States is still seeing a seven-day average of more than four deaths per million people a day, in spite of a vaccination campaign that far outpaces Canada’s.
Some parts of the U.S. are courting a third-wave disaster by, as the U.S. President’s chief medical adviser, Anthony Fauci, put it, spiking the ball on the five-yard line. Five U.S. states have already dropped rules on mask-wearing.
In Canada, the recent approval of more vaccines, the expectation of more doses and the decision to increase the time between first and second shots, so that more people get a first dose, will speed the arrival of mass immunity.
But while there is reason to be hopeful, Canadians have to continue to exercise caution and patience. Declaring victory too soon risks delaying the day we are all waiting for.
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