The egress of COVID-19 patients from Toronto began in mid-November 2020, when the Ontario government activated the GTA Hospital Incident Management System. Transfers peaked in April during the third wave of COVID-19.
Ontario even put out a national call for health-care workers to help out, and Newfoundland answered.
Why would Ontario need to transfer masses of critically ill patients with a highly infectious disease across the province, even resorting to involuntary transfers? Why would a metropolis like Toronto call on comparatively tiny Newfoundland for health-care workers? Is this simply the unavoidable consequences of a huge third wave of COVID-19?
In fact the root causes began long before the pandemic and originated with a flawed understanding of the capacity (physical and human) of our health-care system.