Canada passed the United States in the number of new positive COVID-19 cases reported per capita.
Touching on the “bad news for our neighbors North,” CNN’s Jake Tapper noted during Monday evening’s show that Canada is now “outpacing” the U.S. in new coronavirus cases per capita.
“The Lead” host called the uptick “concerning” as the COVID-19 vaccine rollout in Canada is “not going well at all,” as Tapper put it.
In the U.S., one in three Americans has received at least the first dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, compared to fewer than one in five in Canada who have received their first.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said in November 2020 that the country does not have the production capacity to develop its own coronavirus vaccine. Canada is facing a vaccine shortage.
While CNN correspondent Paul Newton says “you have to rewind decades to really get to the heart of this problem,” she notes, “But that doesn’t let the Trudeau government off the hook.”
“Canadians will now pay for that complacency,” she added.
Tapper then declared, “It’s a real failure by the Trudeau government and our Canadian cousins deserve a lot better.”
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Canada’s vaccine shortage: Covid-19 cases per capita pass U.S. rate as doctors plead for more vaccines @paulanewtonCNN reports pic.twitter.com/IbGok749Ep
— The Lead CNN (@TheLeadCNN) April 12, 2021
Canada has reported a total of more than 1 million COVID-19 cases, compared to the United States’s total of over 31 million, as of Tuesday morning. Canada’s population is roughly 38 million, while the U.S. population is about 328 million.
Despite Canada passing the U.S. in the number of COVID-19 cases reported per capita, health experts say context is critical, according to CBC News.
“Things are bad in Canada, I agree, but I think there’s a little bit of caveat to say, ‘We’re worse than the United States right now,’ without incorporating those pieces as part of the argument,” Dr. Zain Chagla, an infectious disease physician and associate professor of medicine at McMaster University in Hamilton, said, according to CBC News.
He pointed to factors such as COVID-19 deaths in the U.S. being at a higher rate and testing in the U.S. Additionally, Chagla noted that the U.S. saw a surge in cases earlier last year in spots like New York, which he says contributed to some herd immunity.