In a series of tweets on Wednesday, Canada’s top doctor, Theresa Tam, said the average daily case counts in the country are “now on the rise.”
“Latest national-level data show a 7-day average of 3,194 new cases daily,” she wrote.
As the new, more transmissible variants of the coronavirus continue to spread, Tam said, “maintaining public health measures and individual precautions is crucial to reducing infection rates and avoiding a rapid reacceleration of the epidemic and its severe outcomes.”
That means so far, approximately 4.57 per cent of the country’s total population has been inoculated.
On Wednesday, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki confirmed to reporters that Canada has, in fact, asked the United States for help in procuring COVID-19 vaccines.
However, Psaki would only say they are considering the request, not whether the Biden administration has agreed to it.
Global News has reached out to Procurement Canada to determine how many vaccine doses the country is seeking from the United States, but did not immediately hear back.
New cases in the provinces
Ontario added 1,508 new cases on Wednesday, and health officials said 14 more people have died.
Meanwhile, in Quebec, 703 new infections were detected and 12 more fatalities have occurred.
In Saskatchewan, 87 new cases were reported, while 96 new infections were detected in Manitoba.
Health officials in Saskatchewan said one more person has died. Manitoba did not see any new deaths on Wednesday.
In Atlantic Canada, three more people have fallen ill.
Nova Scotia added two new cases, while New Brunswick authorities said one more person has contracted the disease.
None of the Maritime provinces or Newfoundland and Labrador reported any new fatalities on Wednesday.
In western Canada, hundreds more people have become ill with the virus.
Alberta added 479 new cases, while British Columbia saw 498 new infections.
Both provinces reported four new fatalities related to COVID-19.
No new cases or deaths were detected in any of Canada’s territories on Wednesday.
Global cases top 121 million
Globally, more than 121 million people have now contracted the novel coronavirus.
According to the latest tally from Johns Hopkins University, a total of 21,032,282 people have tested positive for the disease.
Since the virus was first detected in late 2019, a total of 2,676,274 people have died around the world.
The United States remained the viral epicentre on Wednesday.
The country has reported more than 29.6 million infections and over 537,000 fatalities to date.