As cases keep rising, hospitals face cancelling elective surgeries
Aggressive spread of virus will increase need for beds, de Villa says
As cases of COVID-19 continue to rise in hot spots in the province, experts are once again warning that hospitals may have to cancel elective surgeries in order to cope.
There are parts of the province — Mississauga, Etobicoke and North York — where nearly 25 per cent of patients in intensive care have COVID-19, said Anthony Dale, president and CEO of the Ontario Hospital Association.
Although hospitals still have beds available, Dale said the province’s intensive care units typically operate close to capacity, which means a surge of COVID-19 patients might push them over the edge and threaten elective surgeries once again, similar to what occurred during the first wave.
In a public statement Monday, Toronto’s medical officer of health warned residents that we need to protect our healthcare system.
Dr. Eileen de Villa said the aggressive spread of the virus will mean an increase in hospitalizations, which will endanger hospital staff and front-line workers, including paramedics, as well as slow the rate of care for other illnesses.
On Monday evening, the province’s regional public health units reported a record 2,006 confirmed or probable cases of COVID-19, the third daily record of new cases in a row. This brought the rolling, seven-day average for Ontario to a new high of 1,877 cases per day.
Numbers keep climbing in hot spots
Toronto reported 651 new COVID-19 cases on Monday and three new outbreaks — one in a health-care institution and two in community and workplaces settings. There were nine new deaths for a total of 1,671 deaths since the pandemic began.
In a public address, de Villa pleaded with residents to cancel in-home festivities this year, which she called “risky.”
Dionne Aleman, a University of Toronto professor and an expert in pandemic modelling, said it’s still too early to see the effects of the restrictions in Toronto and Peel.
“It’s been exactly two weeks since these new measures went into effect so we generally would expect to not see the effects of any measures until at least two weeks have passed,” said Aleman.
Aleman expects to see a bump in the numbers after the winter break.
“How big it is just depends on how much of the population gets the message that they need to be careful,” she said.
Meanwhile, Peel Region continues to have the highest rate of new cases, a total of 222.7 per 100,000 population from Monday to Sunday of last week. The good news? The region’s health unit said there has been slower growth in cases in recent weeks.
At the same time, the region has a per cent positivity — the percentage of people tested for COVID-19 and found to have it — of about 10 per cent as of Nov. 30, according to the data hub howsmyflattening.ca. The rate is the highest in Ontario. Toronto follows in second place with about six per cent positivity.
York’s rate was third in terms of new cases, with 112.1 per 100,000 population.
Windsor Essex continues to struggle with the virus, with 17 outbreaks affecting schools, hospitals, long-term-care homes and workplaces in agriculture, health care, finance and insurance, and manufacturing. The area has the fourth highest rate of new infections: 91.5 per 100,000 population for last week.
Three health units face more restrictions
On Monday, three areas of the province were moved into new categories of the government’s COVID-19 response framework, resulting in further restrictions to stop the spread of the virus.
Middlesex London moved to the “restrict” category, or orange, with 47 new cases per 100,000 people from Monday to Sunday of last week, a rate which ranks it 10th out of the 34 health units in the province. In recent days, new cases of the virus in Middlesex London are nearly double what they were at the height of the first wave.
Thunder Bay has also moved to the “restrict” category, which means private social gatherings are limited to 10 people indoors and 25 outdoors. The area had 44.9 new cases per 100,000 population for the week ending Sunday, 11th highest in the province.
The Haliburton, Kawartha, Pine Ridge District Health Unit moved from the “prevent” to “protect” category, or yellow, which has the same gathering limits as the restrict category. The rate of new weekly cases in the area was 18.9 per 100,000 people as of Sunday, a rate that ranks it in the bottom third of the health units.
ICU capacity decreasing
As of Monday, there were 213 patients with COVID-related illness in Ontario intensive care units and, of those, 121 were on ventilators, according to the Ministry of Health. Of the province’s 2,136 baseline critical care beds, 1,689 or 79 per cent were in use, as of Sunday, according to Critical Care Services Ontario. This means overall COVIDrelated ICU admissions are currently about 75 patients below where they were during the height of the first wave in April, while the number of patients on ventilators in ICUs is about half of what it was at that time.