By Thomas I. Likness
EBC Edmonton Bureau

EDMONTON (Eagle News) — COVID-19 is expected to kill between 11,000 and 22,000 people in the coming months even if strong control measures are maintained, said Canada’s public health agency Thursday.

The Public Health Agency of Canada released several scenarios with the warning that what happens will depend on the behavior of Canadians.

Its best-case scenario sees only 2.5 per cent of Canadians becoming infected. That would mean 934,000 Canadians would fall ill and 11,000 would die. If the infection rate doubled to 5 per cent, 22,000 lives would be claimed by the virus.

Even the best-case projection would have a big impact on hospitals with 73,000 hospitalized, 23,000 of them in intensive care.

The agency says poor control measures would result in a death toll could as high as 300,000. Under that scenario, the virus would infect up to 80 per cent of Canadians.

Chief Public Health Officer Dr. Teresa Tam said Thursday tough measures must continue, even if they create hardships. She said that is the only way to reduce hospital admissions and deaths.

“We can’t prevent every death, but we must prevent every death that we can,” said Tam.

The agency said the fight against the COVID-19 disease will likely take many months and require cycles of tighter and weaker controls.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau agreed with the agency’s strategy.

“I think even after we’re through with this first wave, we will need to remain vigilant and we will need to bring in different measures,” said Trudeau. “Normality as it was before will not come back full on until we get a vaccine for this and that could be a very long way off.”

Over the short term, the agency is predicting 500 to 700 deaths by the end of next week.

As of Thursday, 5:00 p.m. EDT, Canada had 19,774 cases of COVID-19 resulting in 461 deaths.

(Eagle News Service)