Canada outperforms US in daily Covid cases for the first time

Photographer: Cole Burston / Getty Images

For the first time since the pandemic began, Canada has surpassed a terrible milestone, with more new cases of Covid-19 per capita than the US

There have been about 22 new disced cases per 100,000 people in the country during the last 7 days. Ontario is being affected by the The hardest part is that hospitals are suffering from growing stress, especially in Toronto, the country’s largest city.

“This is the worst moment of the pandemic, so far,” Kevin Smith, CEO of University Health Network, said in an interview Monday. “Our ICUs are full.”

Ontario has ordered all surgeries except emergency surgeries canceled in most of the province, for the first time since March 2020. Patients scheduled for cancer, heart and brain surgery are asked to wait while intensive care units are filled with Covid-19 patients. Toronto Hospital for Sick Children has opened an overflow unit to treat adults.

“When the hospital for sick children offers ICU care to adults, you know you’re going through one of the worst times of the pandemic,” said Eileen de Villa, a Toronto doctor. press conference Monday. “The old Covid-19 virus is being excavated for variant B117, with the other two variants also in Toronto.”

Toronto registered 1,296 new cases on Monday and was able to see 2,500 new cases of Covid-19 at the end of the month, at the current rate, according to health officials. warned Monday.

Redistribution of staff

About 1,300 patients have been taken to hospitals across the province to treat the attack of critical cases, Smith said. Hospitals are struggling to get supplies of tocilizumab, an anti-cancer drug that has improved Covid’s survival rates, he said. And the UHN network may soon surpass its ability to deliver extracorporeal membrane oxygen, or ECMO, to Covid patients, an artificial heart and lung technology that can be used when a ventilator is insufficient.

Hospitals in northern Ontario are likely to have to cancel scheduled surgeries soon, Smith said, so Covid patients can be moved from the south to the north of the province. Within the next week, he expects his staff to be redistributed, ideally voluntarily, to the areas with the most needs.

On Monday, Ontario Prime Minister Doug Ford bowed to pressure to close schools for face-to-face learning until data shows the outbreak is easing, a decision that will increase pressure on parents who they are working at a time when people are already exhausted by the 13-month pandemic-related restrictions, along with a launch of tailored and initial vaccines.

Covid fatigue

Friction between harassed health officials, desperate businesses and exhausted residents has been on the rise across Canada. This past weekend, Quebec police used tear gas against a handful of protesters after hundreds of people took to the streets challenging a curfew at 8 p.m., with a handful of fires in the trash and breaking windows, CBC News reported.

On Monday, health officials in British Columbia said the number of patients in critical care has risen to an all-time high.

But nowhere has the pull of the war between competing interests been more evident than in Ontario, where Ford has struggled to contain the virus without ostracizing business leaders. It slows down the safety of vaccines, evolving information about security of the The dose of AstraZeneca and the more contagious nature of the new variants have been added to its challenges, leading to changes in tactics and messaging. Complex color-coded blocking restrictions, which are “gray”, pose a greater threat than “red”, have been accompanied by long lists of vaccine “phases”, detailed reopening “stages” and modifications and amendments. frequent.