Justin Trudeau foresees a grim winter as Omicron batters Canada

OTTAWA — Many months remain in the fight against the latest wave of COVID-19, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau warned Canadians on Wednesday, and there will be no “magic bullet” to end it.

Vaccination campaigns, public health restrictions and virtual classrooms are all likely to be part of pandemic life for a while as the number of new cases fuelled by the virus’s Omicron variant continues to surge, Trudeau told his first news conference of 2022.

The year, he acknowledged, isn’t starting like anyone wanted, and “that’s going to continue to be the story for the coming months.”

Another ongoing story — the scarcity of COVID-19 rapid tests amid overwhelming demand for testing — will get a new chapter this month with 140 million tests set to be delivered to provinces, federal officials said Wednesday.

That amounts to roughly three rapid tests for every Canadian, although it will be up to the provinces to decide who receives the tests and under what circumstances.

Many provinces have scaled back access to the more accurate PCR tests, saying they’ve reached the limits of their ability to provide them in the face of rising infection rates, and that the tests must be reserved for high-risk populations and essential service providers.

In some jurisdictions, symptomatic Canadians are being told to assume they have the virus and isolate, or to take a rapid test for confirmation and then inform their close contacts.

Chief public health officer Dr. Theresa Tam said that doesn’t mean health officials will miss changes to infection patterns or other key metrics of virus spread.

There are still more tests being done now than at any other point in the pandemic, she said, and other monitoring — like wastewater surveillance — also helps with tracking.

There are still uncertainties about how the Omicron variant spreads, Tam said, so choices being made by provinces about testing and isolation periods are about finding a balance.

“This is a balancing of the risks versus the need to protect your critical infrastructure,” she said.

As a parent, Trudeau said, he understands the frustration that comes with hearing that message.

He said his family reacted with “puzzlement” over the Ontario government’s last-minute pivot to virtual school this week, a move Premier Doug Ford said was necessary to keep COVID-19 cases from overwhelming hospitals. The announcement came just days after the province said classes would resume as normal.

Trudeau noted that the federal government has provided billions of dollars in health-care funding to the provinces. It is Ottawa’s job to provide vaccines, rapid tests and the economic supports to help them make choices about how to deploy those resources, he said.

Conservative Leader Erin O’Toole accused Trudeau of failing on all fronts.

The government has been unable to get enough rapid tests, do effective contact tracing or find ways to offer urgently needed support to hospitals that face a surge in demand for spaces in their intensive care units, O’Toole said during a Facebook live video.

Instead, O’Toole charged, the Trudeau government has offered economic benefits that incentivize lockdowns.

“He’s really forcing the country to only use lockdown as the key measure,” he said.

“That should be the last resort. We should be using all of the other tools first.”

The high-level of vaccination among Canadians means the ICU admission rates or severe outcomes are limited only to a “very very small number” of people, O’Toole said.

According to the most recent data from Ontario, of the 209 COVID-19 patients currently hospitalized in intensive care, 109 were unvaccinated, 14 were partially vaccinated and 86 were fully vaccinated.

Nationally, the latest figures suggested 79.5 per cent of hospitalized COVID-19 patients were unvaccinated, although that data dates back to mid-December.

Trudeau offered no accommodation for the unvaccinated on Wednesday.

Beachbound travellers partying on a charter flight to Mexico are a “slap in the face” to those who’ve sharply curtailed their lives over the past two years, he said.

Trudeau also acknowledged the frustration of people who have had their cancer treatments or elective surgeries postponed because beds are filled with people who choose not to get vaccinated against COVID-19.

But, he said, it’s never too late.

Those still seeking their first doses will be welcomed by the health care workers delivering them, Trudeau said.

“They’d much rather be giving you an injection of vaccine than intubating you in an ICU.”