TORONTO (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 04th April, 2020) Up to 15,000 individuals will succumb to the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) throughout the possible 18- to 24-month course of the virus, a panel of experts from Canadian province of Ontario said during a briefing on Friday.
"Over the full two-year course of the pandemic, had we done nothing, Ontario may have suffered 100,000 deaths," Dr. Peter Donnelly, President and CEO of Public Health Ontario said. "If we can do everything we can think of, everything that has already been done stays in place... I think we can reduce the death toll in Ontario to somewhere between 3,000 and 15,000."
Donnelly said that the virus could possibly linger for as long as 24 months because of smaller secondary and tertiary waves of infection.
Adalsteinn Brown, dean of the University of Toronto's school of Public Health, pegged the number of COVID-19 infections at 100,000 in April if no actions were taken, 80,000 if the trajectory observed were to continue, and 12,500 cases if new enhanced measures were enacted. Brown added that under the three scenarios, the number of deaths would be 6000, 1,600 and 2,500 in April.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has previously said the pandemic will likely endure for the coming weeks and possibly months but, he, along with members of his team are facing growing criticism for failing to release modelling data that will shed light on the best- and worst-case scenarios.
On Friday, public health data revealed that the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in Canada increased to 11,747, while the death toll increased to 152.
The World Health Organization declared the COVID-19 outbreak a pandemic on March 11. To date, more than a million people have been infected with the new coronavirus worldwide and more than 55,000 have died, according to Johns Hopkins University.
