Coronavirus: What’s happening in Canada and around the world on Thursday | CBC News

The spending surge is expected to reach a record $308 billion in 2021, say newly released projections from CIHI.

That is roughly $8,019 per Canadian.

“COVID-19 resulted in the single biggest increase in health spending we have ever seen in this country,” said CIHI president David O’Toole in a news release.

Health spending is projected to have increased 12.8 per cent between 2019 and 2020. That’s more than triple the average annual growth rate seen from 2015 to 2019, which was approximately four per cent per year.

Spending is estimated to have increased another 2.2 per cent between 2020 and 2021.

The agency said its estimates will be updated as final spending amounts are tabulated, and may be less accurate than normal given the nature of emergency funds spent during the pandemic.

Still, the numbers add up to a troubling future as Canada works to recover from the pandemic and get health systems back on their feet.

“We know that in times of fiscal restraint we have less to spend on health care, so there’ll be some decisions in the future. It’s obviously a finite pot of money,” said Brent Diverty, vice-president of data strategies and statistics for CIHI.

Historically, increases in health spending have been in step, or slightly greater, than increases in economic growth. When provinces hit hard times, they usually spend less on health care.

But in 2020, the spike in health spending to scale up system capacity, testing and other pandemic responses was paired with a serious contraction in the economic health of the country. The GDP dropped 4.6 per cent that year, according to the latest federal budget.

Health-care backlogs

Now, as the fourth wave of the pandemic ebbs and health systems turn to the surgical and primary-care backlogs left in its wake, they’ll have to figure out how to handle the extra load while carrying mounting health-spending deficits.

There may be other pandemic developments, however, like the rise in virtual care, that could offset some of the costs moving forward.

Some innovations are “in fact making the system more sustainable or affordable,” Diverty said.

Even before the pandemic, health spending had been rising steadily for decades.

The Liberal government committed an additional $6 billion to help pay for health-system backlogs exacerbated by the pandemic in the last federal election, though the specific requirements for that funding must still be negotiated with provinces and territories.

The party promised another $3.2 billion to hire family doctors, nurses and nurse practitioners.

Provinces and territories have asked to meet with the prime minister before the speech from the throne expected later this month.

The premiers have asked the federal government to take on a larger share of health spending moving forward.

-From The Canadian Press, last updated at 6:55 a.m. ET

What’s happening across Canada

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What’s happening around the world

As of early Thursday morning, more than 248.2 million cases of COVID-19 had been reported worldwide, according to Johns Hopkins University’s coronavirus case tracker. The reported global death toll stood at more than five million.

In the Asia-Pacific region, China is on high alert at its ports of entry as strict policies on travel in and out of the country are enforced to reduce COVID-19 risks amid a fresh outbreak, less than 100 days out from the opening of the Beijing Winter Olympics.

In Europe, Germany reported 33,949 new COVID-19 infections, the highest daily increase since the start of the pandemic last year, ahead of a two-day meeting of state health ministers starting on Thursday. The daily number of cases was likely inflated by a public holiday in parts of Germany on Monday that led to a delay in data-gathering. The previous record was on Dec. 18, with 33,777 cases.

In Africa, health officials in South Africa reported 344 new cases of COVID-19 on Wednesday and 29 additional deaths, bringing the number of reported deaths in the country to 89,220.

In the Americas, the chair of the U.S. Senate commerce committee plans an oversight hearing on the airline industry after she asked the major carriers in July to explain worker shortages despite receiving billions in pandemic bailout.

In the Middle East, Bahrain has authorized the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine for emergency use for children aged between 5 and 11 years.

-From Reuters, The Associated Press and CBC News, last updated at 6:50 a.m. ET