By Agence France-Presse The spread of the coronavirus is slowing but Canada still has a ways to go for the all-clear, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Tuesday as the country's COVID-19 deaths neared 3,000. "The measures we've taken so far are working," Trudeau told a daily briefing. "In fact, in many parts of the country the curve has flattened, but we're not out of the woods yet." Public health officials said the epidemic's growth has gone from doubling every three days to now every 16 days. At the start of the pandemic each infected person passed the coronavirus to an average of 2.19 people. The transmission rate has since fallen to each infecting just slightly more than one other person, in part due to social distancing and self-isolation. As of Tuesday morning, there were 49,815 COVID-19 cases recorded in Canada, including 2,929 deaths. New federal government models project a rise in cases to between 53,196 and 66,835, and 3,277 to 3,883 deaths by May 5. Data showed that those over 60 years old have accounted for two-thirds of hospitalizations and 95 percent of COVID-19 deaths in Canada. Many of those cases were linked to nursing homes in Ontario and Quebec province.