With strong control measures, the federal public health agency projects that 11,000 to 22,000 Canadians could die of COVID-19 in the coming months.
The agency released modelling data this morning with different possible scenarios, warning that what happens depends very much on how Canadians behave to keep the respiratory illness from spreading.
It says the fight against the novel coronavirus will likely take many months and require cycles of tighter and weaker controls.
With poor containment measures, the death toll could be much, much higher, the agency says.