Provincial health officials have provided a COVID-19 modelling update.
Doctor Adalsteinn Brown says that if we put the work in now, the pandemic will most likely recede in the summer.
Before that happens, he says there is still a period of risk.
Brown says the next few weeks are vital to the understanding of the impacts of recent variants.
"We can keep the gains we have made by watching spread very closely and by loosening public health measures only carefully. We must be nimble in applying public health measures to extinguish flare ups quickly."
He predicts that variants will be responsible for up to 40 percent of cases by the second week of March.
Officials say declines in hospitalizations and number of cases are slowing down, and the spread of variants could result in a rise in hospitalizations.

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