Trudeau’s Canada hit by Covid third wave

It was just two days ago that Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau was claiming in his country’s parliament that Britain was ‘facing a very serious third wave.’ But now cases in the country have overtaken those of its southern neighbour the USA, whose approach to the pandemic received widespread criticism prior to the vaccine roll out. 

Data from Johns Hopkins University show Canada now have cases of 207.3 per million people compared to those in the United States where numbers are 206.7 per million. A day before Trudeau’s comments on the UK situation, Canada registered a record 10,859 new cases despite the country’s original response to the virus being widely praised. Experts there blame new Covid variants, ‘pandemic fatigue’ and restrictions being eased too quickly with cases now being admitted to ICUs as young as 20.

When asked about his Canadian counterpart’s comments today, Boris Johnson’s official spokesman told journalists at the daily lobby briefing: ‘I don’t have a specific response for Justin Trudeau but I think the case data speaks for itself with this.’