Your weekly COVID-19 update

Every Tuesday, the Maclean's daily newsletter will catch you up on what you need to know about Canada's fight against the coronavirus. This week, Patricia Treble focuses on one story worth watching, and you can get a sneak peek here. You'll also get the same mix of Maclean's stories you expect every day if you scroll down below.

On Tuesday, the Ontario Hospital Association (OHA) tweeted, “We’re now in wave 3″ of the pandemic. For those who look at the daily numbers of COVID-19 cases and don’t see the start of a new wave, the OHA pointed to data from the province’s COVID-19 Science Advisory Table. The table has separated cases of COVID-19 into two categories–the “early variants” which used to dominate cases in Ontario as well as the rest of Canada and the the new variants of concern (VOCs), which are more infectious and much more deadly (a new study in Nature said the B.1.1.7 strain which is the most prevalent VOC in Canada, is associated with 55 per cent more deaths than older variants).

The Science Table charts show that, while cases of the early variants dropped as the second wave crested and receded, those new VOCs are going in the opposite direction. And what so concerns the OHA is that the Science Table estimates those VOCs now account for 49 per cent of all cases in the province, and are climbing rapidly. In addition to the VOC data, the OHA is also sounding an alarm about the hospital system: “ICU #s trending up (nearing 350 today), strong adherence to public health measures is urgently needed to prevent overwhelming hospitals.”

On Monday, as British Columbia reported 1,506 cases for the past three days, Dr. Bonnie Henry, the provincial health officer, commented on the news that several European countries had temporarily stopped issuing AstraZeneca shots after some people developed blood clots after being given the vaccine, pointing out, “We have to remember as well that 17 million doses of AstraZeneca have been given [and], so far, 37 cases of blood clots have been detected. That’s lower than what we might see, even in the general population, without vaccination.” In addition the European Medicines Agency said the number of people getting blood clots after being vaccinated was in line with how many people would get such clots even if they didn’t get a vaccine.

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