Despite being shut down in March 2020 and imposing strict social distance measures, Toronto sees hospitals and intensive care units close to capacity as the city battles its worse COVID-19 wave.
“Sick Kids, our main children’s hospital, had to open ICU beds for adults,” said Dr. Kayla Wolofsky, a doctor in Toronto. As of Thursday, strict home orders – people can only leave the house for essential reasons – were in place for at least 28 days.
This third boom is likely due to new virus variants, exhaustion of the pandemic, spread of the community as schools and shops reopen, as well as a relatively slower vaccination of vaccines due to a lack of production capacity.
While more than a third of all Americans have received at least one vaccine dose, only half have as many (15%) Canadians, according to health statistics from both countries.
“The combination of a slow vaccine effect and the emergence of variants has put incredible pressure on Ontario’s health systems, and has unfortunately left the public health departments few options to control distribution,” said John Brownstein, head of innovation at Boston Children’s, said. Hospital and an ABC News contributor.
According to epidemiologist dr. Ashleigh Tuite at the University of Toronto there are several variants that cause concern. Most cases in Ontario currently come from strain B.1.1.7 (UK), but some cases of the P.1 (Brazil / Japan) and B.1351 (South Africa) strains have been reported.
“As for what’s happening in Ontario,” Tuite said, “the variant of concern has become predominant. At this point, about 70% of the reported cases have been identified as a variant of concern.”
Dr. Hiren Patel, an emergency physician in Toronto, added: “Increasing vaccinations and maintaining strict lockout guidelines may be the only way to prevent this wave from getting worse.”
Residents of Toronto have expressed frustration over the vaccination of the vaccine and its impact on their social lives, as well as business owners with some restaurants, gyms, salons and other non-essential services now closed for more than 300 days in a row.
“Toronto has experienced some of the most intense infection control measures of any city on the planet,” Brownstein said. “While roadblocks are ultimately a last resort if other measures fail and health care goes beyond our means, we can not ignore the huge economic and health effects.”
Some of the health consequences include the mental health of Toronto residents.
Elizabeth Whelan, a native of Toronto, said that “as far as high schools are concerned, all extracurricular schools have been essentially canceled, and that children would rather play games or practice with their teams at Zoom to try to maintain a human connection.”
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Many believe that this latest exclusion could have been avoided if the vaccine had been available earlier or otherwise rolled out, and perhaps prioritized more younger essential workers instead of just the elderly.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is making efforts to provide additional funding to help with the testing and contact detection, and has agreed to a $ 19 billion incentive to restart the economy and continue to support Canadians.
Karine Tawagi, MD, a hematology and oncology fellow at Ochsner Medical Center in New Orleans, contributes to the ABC News Medical Unit.
This is why COVID business in Toronto is increasing, despite the early closure that originally appeared on abcnews.go.com