Canada sees 3,601 new COVID-19 cases as global infections top 124 million

Health officials in the province also confirmed another 19 people have died after testing positive for the novel coronavirus.

In a series of tweets on Tuesday, Canada’s top doctor Theresa Tam said as vaccine delivery begins to “ramp up at an accelerated pace,” there are “hopeful signs for better days ahead.”

“However, the #VariantsOfConcern trend is cause for continued caution,” she wrote.

5:19 Could COVID-19 become endemic, and what would that mean?

“Amid increasing case counts and shifting severity trends, a rising proportion of cases involving #VariantsOfConcern means we need to remain vigilant, maintaining public health measures and individual precautions.”

According to Health Canada, to date, there have been 5,485 cases of the new, more transmissible variants of the coronavirus, 331 of which were detected since Sunday.

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Tam said the increasing number of variant cases are a “reminder of how tight the vaccines versus variants race continues to be.”

That means approximately 5.66 per cent of the Canadian population has been inoculated against the coronavirus.

Canada has fallen behind its closest allies when it comes to its mass vaccination effort.

1:15 Canada’s top doctor says B.1.1.7 variant could lead to more severe illness

In the United States, 13.16 per cent of the population have been vaccinated, while half of all adults in the U.K. have now received their first shot.

However, Canada’s Procurement Minister Anita Anand said this week Canada is set to receive its largest deliveries of vaccines to date.

In a tweet on Sunday, Anand said the country will receive just over 2 million doses this week, with 1.2 million shots from Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine and 846,000 doses from Moderna.

New cases in the provinces

In Ontario, 1,546 new cases and nine new deaths associated with COVID-19 were reported on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, Quebec added 656 new infections and four new fatalities.

In Saskatchewan, health authorities said 149 more people have fallen ill, and one more person has died.

Manitoba saw 98 more COVID-19 infections, and one new fatality was reported in the province.

0:52 Canadian government pledges additional $23.7M for isolation sites across Ontario

Ten new cases of the novel coronavirus were detected in Atlantic Canada on Tuesday.

New Brunswick reported seven new cases, while health officials in Prince Edward Island said two more people have contracted the disease.

Nova Scotia added one new COVID-19 case.

However, none of the Maritime provinces, or Newfoundland and Labrador, reported any new fatalities on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, over a thousand new cases were detected in Western Canada.

Health authorities in Alberta said 465 more people have tested positive for COVID-19, while 682 more people in British Columbia have contracted the respiratory illness.

Three more people have died in Alberta, while B.C. health officials said one more fatality has occurred in the province.

1:51 Growing concern over B.C. variant case numbers

None of Canada’s territories reported any new cases of COVID-19 or deaths associated with the virus on Tuesday.

Worldwide infections top 124 million

Globally, more than 124 million people have been infected with the novel coronavirus.

According to the latest tally from Johns Hopkins University, by Tuesday evening, 124,000,772 people had contracted the virus worldwide.

Since COVID-19 was first detected in late 2019, it has claimed 2,728,860 lives around the world.

The United States has been the hardest hit, reporting over 29.9 million cases and more than 543,600 fatalities.