Statement from the Chief Public Health Officer of Canada on July 2, 2020

OTTAWA, ON, July 2, 2020 /CNW/ - In lieu of an in-person update to the media, Dr. Theresa Tam, Canada's Chief Public Health Officer, issued the following statement today:

"As of the end of day on June 30^th, there have been 104,204 cases of COVID-19 reported in Canada, including 8,591 deaths. 65% of people have now recovered. Labs across Canada have tested over 2,770,000 people for COVID-19 to date. Over the past week, an average of 37,000 people were tested daily, with 1% testing positive. These numbers change quickly and are updated daily in the evenings on Canada.ca/coronavirus, with the exception of Canada Day.

Earlier this week, Canada's Deputy Chief Public Health Officer, Dr. Howard Njoo and I presented an analysis of the new data and modelling projections that are guiding ongoing control of COVID-19 in Canada. See the full presentation here.

There is good news for Canadians in our national COVID-19 surveillance data, which show a steady decline across four important indicators of COVID-19 transmission. The numbers of cases, hospitalisations, critical care unit admissions and deaths have all declined steadily throughout May and June.

At the same time, recent outbreaks in areas with previously no or very low levels of transmission serve as reminders that a resurgence in COVID-19 cases can happen any place, any time. In fact, we expect to see flare-ups in transmission as we lift restrictive public health measures to minimize other health, social and economic impacts of these community-wide controls. Our job now is to limit each new flare-up to a small and manageable size, and to prevent them from touching those at high risk of severe outcomes of COVID-19.

Your individual actions matter. Avoid the three Cs as much as possible to lower your risk and help minimize the impact of COVID-19 in Canada:

• Closed spaces with poor ventilation;
• Crowded places with large numbers of people gathered; and
• Close contact where you can't keep an optimal two-metres physical distance apart from others.

And consider, who would be on your list of close contacts if you test positive?

Keep your number of contacts low. When people keep their number of contacts to a small group of easily identifiable people, this helps public health authorities trace and quarantine their contacts quickly when needed to break new chains of COVID-19 transmission. When contacts are traced and quarantined early, they are less likely to spread the infection to others if they do become ill and fewer new people will become infected."

SOURCE Public Health Agency of Canada