Canada marks one year since first COVID-19 case

TRENTON, Canada

As Canada marks the anniversary Monday of the first diagnosed coronavirus case, vaccines are running short, the country has surpassed 19,000 deaths and the virus rages on.

It was a Toronto man in his 50s who had returned from Wuhan, China – the epicenter of the outbreak – who was suspected of being infected and was placed in isolation in a Toronto hospital, Jan, 25, 2020.

The next day his wife, who had accompanied him to China, tested positive.

On Jan. 27, the National Microbiology Lab in Winnipeg, Manitoba, confirmed the man had the virus.

And so it began.

A year later, beleaguered Canadians are still undergoing lockdowns – currently, there is a state of emergency in Ontario’s most populated province of Ontario – and the border with the US has been closed to all but essential travel since last spring. Businesses are shuttered with some closing permanently despite government financial assistance.

Air traffic has also been restricted and in a recent drastic measure instituted requires those arriving to be tested for the virus before boarding an aircraft bound for Canada.

Further, just days ago Prime Minister Justin Trudeau issued his sternest warning yet that Canadians not travel or they may be stranded in a foreign country with the possibility that Canada could close its borders to international flights.

As of Monday, Canada had 61,201 virus cases, with 19,180 deaths. Recoveries stood at 668,741.

Nursing homes and their elderly residents have proven easy prey for the spreading virus.

As many as 80% of deaths have occurred in the homes and a vaccine shortage looms, with Pfizer-BioNTech – two doses are needed – saying that deliveries will drop by 50% over the next month, pushing back as many as 400,000 doses. As on Monday, 816,451 inoculations had been done in the country of 38 million.

While the pharmaceutical company promised to treat all countries equally, it has not. Pfizer announced the EU will get increased deliveries and US shipments are uninterrupted.

At a press conference last Tuesday, Public Services and Procurement Minister Anita Anand could not explain why Canada has had shipments delayed, a development she characterized as “disappointing.”

Pfizer has not offered an explanation, either.

Meanwhile, the so-called second wave of the pandemic has proven to be more disastrous than the first, with cases increasing despite measures to stop the spread.

The unrelenting year-long battle has Canadians wondering if there is an end to it all.

“It starts to wear you down,” said Dr. Abdu Sharkawy, an infectious disease expert at a Toronto hospital. “It’s hard to ignore the tragedies that we see unfolding in front of us everywhere.

”Young people dying, long-term care being ravaged, people losing their livelihoods and their businesses, people suffering from chronic depression and mental health issues.”