Dr. Tam Has Moved On From Waves & Now The Pandemic Is Measured In Ski Hills

Move over waves, there's a new COVID-19 term in town. The second wave in Canada is now being measured in ski hills by Dr. Theresa Tam. According to the country's top doctor, moguls are better than big hills.

During a press conference on September 22 about new COVID-19 data and modelling from the Public Health Agency of Canada, Dr. Tam offered a different way to talk about the virus resurging.

She said that everybody is asking if we're in the second wave right now or not.

The data and modelling included graphs that show daily case counts for Canada as a whole and for different provinces.

She noted that the one for the whole country is going up but she can't tell us if the line on that graph is going to go down a bit then up a bit and then down a bit again.

Dr. Tam also referenced other people calling it moguls.

"We want to keep it at low moguls, we don't want it to go up a giant ski hill and down again. That is the bit that we want to avoid," she said.

Seeing as we're now in fall and heading towards winter, maybe ski hills are a more appropriate measure since waves are more of a summer thing.

According to the top doc, we're riding the pandemic like different bumps and currents that go up and down.

However, naming that isn't always easy.

"Would you call the next bump third wave or the following one the fourth? It's very difficult to say," she said.

Dr. Tam noted that this surge is different than the one we saw at the beginning of the pandemic.

That's because younger people are being affected right now so the country is "at a crossroads."

Ontario's Associate Chief Medical Officer of Health said recently that the province is currently in another wave but it's still unclear if that's the big second one or just a small one.

However, Ottawa's top doctor has come out and said the city is going through a second wave.