Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland acknowledged that Thursday’s numbers will likely frighten people. “But what I would also like to say is information is power and facts are powerful,” Freeland told a press conference later in the day. “Turn that very understandable, legitimate fear into power and a conviction that we all need to do this hard thing to get the best possible outcome for Canadians.”

Despite the stark numbers, officials also spoke Thursday about the possibility of lifting some restrictions in the coming months. Trudeau said he hopes to restore some economic activity once the first wave of the virus tapers off.

But health officials made it clear that any loosening of restrictions will need to be accompanied by rigorous surveillance and testing to clamp down on future outbreaks.

Dr. Howard Njoo, Canada’s deputy chief public health officer, said some controls will need to remain in place until the end of the pandemic, especially to protect people in long-term care facilities and other vulnerable populations.

Njoo said Canada’s “best-case scenario” would see 1 percent of Canadians infected with the virus over the course of the pandemic — about 376,000 people and 4,400 deaths. With no restrictions in place, officials warned the virus could strike 80 percent of the population and kill 355,000 people.

Dr. Theresa Tam, Canada’s chief public health officer, said an infection rate of 2.5 percent or higher would start to put a serious strain on the country’s health-care system. At that rate, officials are projecting 73,000 hospitalizations and 11,000 deaths. The model assumed a fatality rate of about 1.2 percent.

Officials wouldn’t say which path Canada is on right now, though Tam said the country is in a good position relative to others, with its total case count doubling every three to five days, and the growth rate of infections showing signs of slowing.

“We are the authors of our fate,” Tam said. “Together, we can plank the epidemic curve.”

As of Thursday afternoon, there were 20,703 confirmed cases of Covid-19 in Canada and 503 deaths.

Canada also received an early taste Thursday of Covid-19’s economic damage.

Like so many countries around the world, Canada has effectively shut down massive segments of its economy in an effort to halt the spread of the coronavirus.

The swift evaporation of more than 1 million jobs last month helped drive the unemployment rate to 7.8 percent, up from 5.6 percent in February. It was the largest one-month increase in the jobless rate since comparable data became available in 1976.

The services sectors were by far the hardest hit, shedding 963,500 jobs, including a 23.9 percent employment drop in accommodation and food services.

The Trudeau government has introduced a large economic package in an effort to provide financial support for workers and to help companies avoid layoffs.

As a result, a big fiscal hit is coming. Yves Giroux, Canada's parliamentary budget officer, released a new report Thursday that projected the economic aid package would inflate the 2020-21 federal deficit to C$184.2 billion — or 8.5 percent of the gross domestic product.

Trudeau was asked how he thought Canadians should make sense of everything over the holiday weekend, especially at a time when people are being asked to avoid large get-togethers.

“As we gather with the immediate family members that we’re sharing a home with right now, as we FaceTime to our loved ones and reflect through this Easter weekend, we need to know we will continue,” he said.

“We can continue to do what is necessary for the coming weeks and months to get through this first wave in the right way so we can get back to being there for each other in the coming year.”