Ultimately, it will be our willingness as Canadians to adhere to social distancing — for as long as it takes — that will determine Canada’s success or failure in beating back COVID-19.
A snapshot of the global spread of the virus at 3:45 p.m. Eastern Standard Time on March 19 illustrates why.
At that point – and these figures change hourly and will be much different by the time you read this – there were 240,820 diagnosed cases globally and 9,955 deaths.
Compared to countries where COVID-19 is running rampant, such as Italy (41,035 cases, 3,405 dead), Iran (18,407 cases, 1,284 dead) and Spain (17,963 cases, 830 dead), Canada was still in relatively good shape as of March 19.
So far, we had 801 cases and 10 deaths.
Yet the problem is that any snapshot of the spread of COVID-19 only tells us what’s happened. It doesn’t tell us what’s going to happen.
While we don’t know the exact number, we do know there are already far more than 801 cases of COVID-19 across Canada.
That’s because the virus, which is highly contagious, has been spreading since the first diagnosed case here on Jan. 25 — a visitor from Wuhan, China.
The incubation period is two to 14 days and while people are most contagious after they show symptoms, it’s possible that some will transmit the virus before symptoms show.
Given that our federal, provincial and municipal governments have only recently mandated aggressive social distancing, the daily number of new infections and deaths are going to increase for some time.
The purpose of social distancing is to initially slow the rate of increase of new cases and then get the rate to begin dropping, ideally until there are no new cases for 28 days (which would be two incubation periods).
The goal of social distancing is to prevent hospitals from being overwhelmed by seriously ill patients — about one in five who contract COVID-19 — particularly the elderly and those with underlying medical conditions.
They require prolonged and intensive critical care, including respirators to help them breathe, in secure environments where the virus cannot spread.
Medical staff caring for them must be properly equipped so that they are not infected and patients in hospital for other medical conditions are not endangered.
That’s why social distancing now is so important.
It’s our best chance of containing the virus until a vaccine is available.
– Postmedia Network