Thought of the Day - February 27 2022 - By the Numbers

Adding to their woes, Eastern Europe has now taken over as the epicentre of COVID, with high cases earlier in the month now translating into fatalities.

In Canada our fifth wave's official cases dropped by 50% over the past two weeks. That said, we are still a tale of two countries: Northwest Territories, PEI and Nunavut are at the top of the Canada/US list in reported cases,

while BC is now near the bottom in official cases; of course, this is also a reflection of the level of testing.

With more and more provinces ending COVID measures and the Federal Emergency Act curtailed, Canada's stringency dropped significantly over the past week (as did China's now the Olympics have finished). All provinces, other than BC, have dropped or have announced the dropping of their pandemic measures, including their passport systems. Thus, we are now starting to come back in line with our major trading partners. It will be interesting to see the next steps at the Federal level.

Of note India now has some of the strictest measures. For example, I think you still cannot enter the country on a tourist visa by land.

This week's shout-out goes to PEI. Despite their high case count, their hospitalizations and fatalities remain very low. Therefore they are accelerating their reopening.

Cheers

Cliff