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COVID-19: Canada projects #coronavirus could kill 11,000 to 22,000 people

Theresa Tam, Canada’s chief public health officer, is releasing federal COVID-19 projections for Canada.

“Models are not a crystal ball,” Tam told the briefing.

Note that the death toll so far is 435 (as of 4 a.m. today).


With strong control measures, the federal public health agency projects that 11,000 to 22,000 Canadians could die of COVID-19 in the coming months.

The Public Health Agency of Canada says short-term estimates are more reliable, and it anticipates 500 to 700 deaths by the end of next week.

The agency released modelling data this morning with different possible scenarios, warning that what happens depends very much on how Canadians behave to keep the respiratory illness from spreading.

With poor containment measures, the death toll could be much, much higher, the agency says.

It says the COVID-19 battle in Canada is still in its early stages but Canada’s numbers of confirmed cases have been increasing more slowly than in other countries.

The agency the fight against the novel coronavirus will likely take many months and require cycles of tighter and weaker controls.

Canada has reported an economy lost of 1,011,000 jobs in March as the COVID-19 crisis began to take hold, which lifts the unemployment rate up to 7.8 per cent.

NEW: 1,011,000 jobs killed last month as the Covid-19 pandemic exacted its vengeance
A typical monthly job loss might be 15K so this is Pain x 67
Jobless rate vaults to 7.8%, a 39% jump
Collapse is sharper than any recent recession#COVID19 #cdneconhttps://t.co/YOqqeEVBqt pic.twitter.com/F1GFJshJR3— Jeannie Lee@CBC (@JeannieLee88) April 9, 2020

The 2.2 per cent increase in the national unemployment rate marks the worst single-month change over the last 40-plus years of comparable data and brings the rate to a level not seen since October 2010.

Economists warn the numbers are likely to be even worse when the agency starts collecting April job figures, with millions more Canadians now receiving emergency federal aid.

Statistics Canada retooled some of its usual measures of counting employed, unemployed and “not in the labour force” to better gauge the effects of COVID-19 on the job market, which has been swift and harsh.

The number of people considered unemployed rose by 413,000 between February and March, almost all of it fuelled by temporary layoffs, meaning workers expected their jobs back in six months.

The jobs report out this morning also says that most of the losses were in the private sector, with the greatest employment declines observed for youth aged 15 to 24.

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