Ottawa, Dec 13 (IANS): Amid a raging second wave of the pandemic, Canada's overall coronavirus caseload has increased to 458,527, while the death toll stood at 13,367, according to health authorities.

The Public Health Agency of Canada said on Saturday that the country's daily average over the past seven days has reached 6,543, reports Xinhua news agency.

The pandemic is "putting countless Canadians at risk of life-threatening illness, causing significant disruption to health services, and presenting ongoing challenges for areas not adequately equipped to manage complex medical emergencies", the country's Chief Public Health Officer Theresa Tam said in a statement on Saturday.

The number of people experiencing severe illness continues to increase across Canada.

The country's provincial and territorial data indicates that during the most recent seven days, an average of 2,900 infected people were being treated in hospitals daily, with 565 of them in intensive care units.

Tam said that during the same period, there were an average of 100 Covid-19 deaths reported daily.

"These impacts affect everyone, as the healthcare workforce and health system bear a heavy strain, important elective medical procedures are delayed or postponed, adding to pre-existing backlogs and wait times," she said.

"We can change this," Tam said.

"To do this, we need to continue to limit close contacts to only those in our immediate household and reduce in-person interactions to only essential errands and activities, while consistently maintaining key public health practices."