Canada officially racked up 100,000 cases of the novel coronavirus on Thursday and although the outbreak is slowing, health experts said major challenges remain, Trend reports citing Reuters.
Authorities admit they were not prepared for how fast the pandemic ripped through nursing homes, where more than 80% of the deaths occurred.
While the 10 provinces are slowly reopening their economies, major restrictions remain in place in Montreal and Toronto, Canada’s two biggest cities.
“We haven’t done brilliantly, we’ve done acceptably,” said University of Toronto epidemiologist Camille Lemieux, saying the outbreak was “a very big wake-up call” about shortfalls in a fragmented health care system.
The province of Ontario on Thursday announced another 190 cases a day after public health agency data showed 99,853 people had been diagnosed positive. That pushed Canada over the 100,000 mark and into 17th place on the global list.
Canada has recorded at least 8,266 deaths, in 12th place worldwide according to data compiled by Reuters.