Canadians told to avoid NON-ESSENTIAL travel as Christmas nears

"As you saw during the presentation of Dr. Tam and Dr. Nu last Friday the epidemiological situation is changing rapidly. The information currently available suggests a significant resurgence of infections, even without taking account the new Omicron variant," said Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos during Wednesday's press conference.

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Recently, cases of the variant have exploded in countries like South Africa and the United Kingdom, though only one death "with Omicron" has been reported. The age, weight, gender, and any potential comorbidities about the person who died with Omicron are all unknown.

"... Many of us have also done our civic duty by getting vaccinated. These collaborative efforts have enabled us to make great progress, but as we see with Omicron, the virus, too, has adapted. As soon as a new variant was identified, our government put in place extensive border measures to slow the spread of the new variant into Canada, as much as possible.

"We now know that community transmission is present in Canada and across the globe, and in some circumstances, extremely rapidly," Duclos said.

"We must stand together and do everything in our power to protect our healthcare system and our front-line workers.

"So today, I have the task of confirming that our government is officially advising Canadians to avoid non-essential travel outside Canada.

He continued: "To those who were planning to travel, I say very clearly, now is not the time to travel. The rapid spread of the Omicron variant on the global scale, makes us fear the worst for Canadians that may think of travelling. Travelling Canadians could contract the virus, or get stranded abroad.

"In terms of arrival testing, we will continue to expand our capacity as indicated to test as many travellers as possible, and as quickly as possible.

"This measure will be in place for a period of four weeks, and we will reassess the situation after it is time.

"We know that this may sound very drastic to many listening," he said. "But we must avoid overloading our hospital system and our health care workers. I know we are all tired of this pandemic, but I must call on the solidarity of all Canadians."

Worry continues over mild variant

While some health officials, such as the WHO's Tedros and the head of Ontario's Science Advisory table, who said that the notion that the Omicron variant is mild is a "myth," data released last week shows that 76 percent of patients in Tshwane, South Africa, Omicron COVID-19 were incidental findings, meaning many were admitted for other conditions but were tested because of hospital policy.

Admitted patients were younger than in previous waves, with nearly 80 percent below 50 years.

South African hospital CEO Dr. Richard Friedland said that the mildness of the variant could "signal the end of COVID," saying "If, in the second and third wave, we'd seen these levels of positivity to tests conducted, we would have seen very significant hospital admissions, and we're not seeing that."

"So I actually think there is a silver lining here, and this may signal the end of COVID-19, with it attenuating itself to such an extent that it is highly contagious but does not cause severe disease. That's what happened with Spanish flu."

Concerns remains, however, that the sheer number of cases from the highly contagious variant could still overwhelm hospitals, due to serious illness in just a tiny fraction of the population.