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.

On Monday, Canada reported 10,548 new cases of COVID-19. While the number is a massive jump from the 5,824 recorded just on April 1, it also comes with an asterisk. During the long weekend, the two hotspots of British Columbia and Alberta didn’t provide daily figures. British Columbia, which previously announced all of its holiday or weekend data on the first day of the work week, decided against that strategy as it deals with a worsening crisis.

So instead of announcing 4,040 cases for the past four days, it grouped them into two two-day allotments of 2,151 and 1,889. That two-day allotment method is also how Manitoba announced its four-day tally of 316 cases. But Alberta took another path, releasing only estimates from Friday to Sunday, then replacing those preliminary figures with the final four-day tally of 3,987 cases on Monday, or roughly 1,000 cases a day. And that was enough to throw Canada’s tally for April 5 over the 10,000 mark.

The intensity of this third wave of the pandemic can be seen by looking at how swiftly Canada’s national rate of cases is climbing. A month ago, it was 77.8 per million population, on a 14-day rolling average. By March 26, it crossed the 100 case mark, and now, 10 days later is 142.8 per million population. As of April 5, only Manitoba has a new case rate below 100 per million population.

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