Your weekly COVID-19 update

Every Tuesday, the Maclean's daily newsletter will catch you up on what you need to know about Canada's fight against the coronavirus. This week, Patricia Treble focuses on one story worth watching, and you can get a sneak peek here. You'll also get the same mix of Maclean's stories you expect every day if you scroll down below.

A year ago, there was a total of just 86 cases of COVID-19 reported in four provinces of Canada: British Columbia, Alberta, Ontario and Quebec. And the first death had been announced on March 8. Now, a year later, there are 895,703 cumulative cases of COVID-19, including another 4,191 reported on Monday. The death toll stands at 22,266.

On Monday, the four Western provinces announced another 2,204 cases, including 1,462 for the past three days in British Columbia. That means that the daily case count for B.C. has risen to an average of 556 a day in the past week, compared to 487 a day for the previous week.

There is a divergence occurring in Central Canada: while Ontario’s rate of new cases has essentially plateaued for the past four weeks at between 75 and 85 daily cases per million population, the per capita rate in Quebec continues to fall. On Feb. 8, its rate was 134.5 per million population; a month later, it is down to 86 per million population, a bit above the national rate of 78.8.

While the number of COVID-19 patients in hospital stays at around 2,000 in Canada, the number of patients requiring critical care continues to fall, albeit slowly, down just 27 patients to 537 in March, according to COVID-19 Tracker Canada.

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