The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Canada surpassed 120,000 on Monday, yet the pandemic curve is continuing to ease back down from July’s sudden spike.
The country added 327 new lab-confirmed cases of COVID-19 since Sunday, bringing the total to 120,089 cases. Some provinces that took the weekend off from reporting data provided three-day totals Monday, further adding to Canada’s case count.
The death toll has now risen to 8,987, an increase of six from Sunday — yet five of those deaths, all patients in Alberta, have occurred since Friday and health officials did not provide exact dates. Quebec was the only other province to report a new death Monday.
Quebec reported 98 new coronavirus cases, while adding an additional 58 cases from previous weeks thanks to a change in data sourcing. The province’s total now stands at 60,627 confirmed cases, though 53,041 have recovered.
In Ontario, 115 new cases brought its total to 40,161, while the death toll remained unchanged at 2,786.
Manitoba and Saskatchewan added 16 and five new cases, respectively, with no new deaths. Saskatchewan has now reached 1,450 new cases, followed by Manitoba at 558.
In addition to five new deaths since Friday, Alberta reported 257 more cases over a three-day span, including 48 since Sunday. The province has seen a total of 11,687 cases and 213 deaths.
The past three days saw British Columbia record 131 more cases, 44 of which were new as of Monday, bringing the total to 4,022 confirmed cases. An additional 43 cases are considered “epidemiologically linked,” meaning they are connected to confirmed cases but have not been confirmed by laboratory tests themselves.
B.C. has not seen a death from COVID-19 since July 31, keeping its total at 195 deaths since the pandemic began.
In Atlantic Canada, a new case was reported in Newfoundland and Labrador to bring the province’s total to 268 cases. Only one other case remains active there, while three people have died.
None of the remaining Atlantic provinces or the three territories reported new cases Monday.
Monday’s nationwide total was the lowest in nearly a month, before cases began spiking across the country in late July.
Those spikes have largely been blamed on relaxed physical distancing measures and reopened bars and restaurants, which — coupled with hotter summer temperatures — have led to larger gatherings, primarily among young people.
While the past week has seen slightly higher daily totals compared to those at the beginning of August, the pandemic curve is dipping and flattening overall after the July spike.
Health officials are still warning young people in particular to refrain from large indoor parties and other gatherings to bring the curve down further.
Monday also saw the number of global confirmed coronavirus cases surpass 20 million, a milestone that was reached at an accelerated speed compared to earlier months of the pandemic.
It took just six weeks for worldwide cases to double from 10 million, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.
Experts say the true number of cases globally could be up to 10 times higher due to testing shortfalls in the weeks and even months after the virus spread from Wuhan, China in December 2019.
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