Canada sees early signs of benefits from declining COVID-19 counts | CBC News

Cases of COVID-19 are declining in many parts of Canada, but experts say those early positive signs are dependent on widespread restrictions. .

Caroline Colijn, an infectious disease modeller at Simon Fraser University, said most of the provinces seem to be declining.

"Ontario's kind of uncertain, Saskatchewan's growing still or again, but the rest are kind of flat or declining," said Colijn, who also holds a Canada Research Chair in mathematics for evolution, infection and public health.

But Colijn fears Ontario's stay-at-home order, Quebec's curfew and restrictions in other provinces aren't solutions that people can sustain for months.

Colijn said widespread restrictions, symptomatic testing and contact tracing remain cornerstone tools.

Restrictions on retail stores, restaurants and bars could help bring cases, hospitalizations and deaths down given how Saskatchewan is "stretched to the limit," he said?

Sumon Chakrabarti, an infectious disease physician with Trillium Health Partners in Mississauga, Ont., said the province's seven-day averages are encouraging.

"We're now more than two weeks past what would be the New Year's surge," Chakrabarti said, referencing people socializing over the holidays despite advice from public health officials and politicians to stay at home. .

Now that the holiday peak in new cases is over, regular winter transmission of the virus is happening in the population, he said.

Chakrabarti recalls how during the province's first wave in the spring, cases came down and then were stuck at a plateau for months, which he said could happen again.

"Yes, there are some people who are breaking the rules," Chakrabarti said